I still do not understand why the question of unions has not emerged at any of the debates. Be that as it may, and I mainly blame the moderators for not raising this question, only Bernie Sanders has spoken out about the importance of building the trade union movement in restoring some level of income equality. In any case, the Democrats projected a measure of hope for the future, unlike the Republicans who, catering to fear and ignorance, want to cut spending for everything but building up the military.
I still see the major differences between Sanders and Clinton in Sanders advocating a single-payer healthcare system and tuition-free state colleges. Clinton (apparently) wants to build on Obamacare and keep college tuition, though with some vague suggestions of how to do it without student debt. I do think that Sanders needs to come up with a very detailed plan about how to finance the single-payer system. Huge profits are currently going to health insurance companies, as employers pay as much as $15,000 a year to insure their employees while the insurance companies, in a clear conflict of interest, avoid paying claims whenever they can get away with it. I do think the money going to insurance companies, along with the tax on speculation advocated by Sanders, would effectively finance a single-payer system. Clinton has not stated clearly why she is opposed to a single-payer system (if she is, in fact) though it is clear that donations she receives from drug companies are a factor.
Sanders and O'Malley also disagree with Clinton about tactics in the Middle East; they both believe that the toppling of dictators has produced unintended consequences and contributed to the rise of Islamic terrorists. There has been something of an assumption that once dictators are removed there will be a happy democracy voted in. This has not been generally the case. As Sanders said, "Clinton is happy to get ride of Qadaffi without worrying enough about what comes next." Sanders voted against the Iraq war, which he sees as contributing to chaos in the Middle East.
As part of his single-payer healthcare plan Sanders want to treat drug offenders, not incarcerate them; as he says, "addiction is not a criminal act." He also wants to considerably extend mental health assistance, which is mostly absent from insurance plans. My take on this debate is that Sanders has specific ideas to improve education and healthcare and to put the brakes on the increasing inequality while Clinton speaks mostly in generalities and of allowing everyone to live up to "their God-given potential."
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Friday, December 18, 2015
Republican Debate: Dec. 15, 2015
Ho Hum. This time the potential candidates tried to outdo themselves and each other with warmongering and saber-rattling. Ted Cruz wants to carpet-bomb in Syria and earlier said he wants to bomb ISIS "back to the Stone Age," an expression used by Curtis Lemay when he was George Wallace's running mate, referring to the Vietnam war. Donald Trump went the furthest, saying he would target the families of terrorists, under the questionable theory that terrorists may not care about their own lives but do care about their families. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Vietnam and even Iraq in their ideas about a Pax Americana. Carly Fiorina wants to listen to the advice of the generals who have shown time and time again their inability to understand the wars we fight. Of all the candidates only Rick Santorum was willing to make an attempt to understand ISIS and what it is doing. I suspect that this is, to some extent, because his own theology is so conservative and misogynistic but he did at least make something of an attempt to put the situation into context, a context that goes back to the French and English imperialist division of the Middle East after World War I.
All the candidates want to return to a mythical time when the United States ran the world and vanquished all its enemies. When Chris Christie mentioned the shutdown of the Los Angeles school system he talked about the safety of all "the mothers taking their kids to school and all the fathers going off to work" as though this were still the 50's! The candidates want to build up the military (though they all said they would not reinstitute the draft, probably because 18- year-olds vote now) and at the same time cut taxes and balance the budget; only Rand Paul pointed out the contradiction there. Everyone wants to "secure the border" and only Rubio would consider a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, though he said that was far in the future after many other things were dealt with. The candidates seem to have made an agreement that when they mention how ineffective they think Obama is that his name should always be coupled with Hillary Clinton's, guilt by association. And each candidate had some sort of slogan they repeated, from Fiorina's "take America back" (it's unclear what that means) to Chris Christie's "I was a federal prosecutor," i.e., mine is bigger than yours.
All the candidates want to return to a mythical time when the United States ran the world and vanquished all its enemies. When Chris Christie mentioned the shutdown of the Los Angeles school system he talked about the safety of all "the mothers taking their kids to school and all the fathers going off to work" as though this were still the 50's! The candidates want to build up the military (though they all said they would not reinstitute the draft, probably because 18- year-olds vote now) and at the same time cut taxes and balance the budget; only Rand Paul pointed out the contradiction there. Everyone wants to "secure the border" and only Rubio would consider a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, though he said that was far in the future after many other things were dealt with. The candidates seem to have made an agreement that when they mention how ineffective they think Obama is that his name should always be coupled with Hillary Clinton's, guilt by association. And each candidate had some sort of slogan they repeated, from Fiorina's "take America back" (it's unclear what that means) to Chris Christie's "I was a federal prosecutor," i.e., mine is bigger than yours.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Democratic Debate Nov.14,2015
Bernie Sanders was passionate and answered questions, Martin O'Malley seemed like a reasonable guy but did not have much to say, Hillary Clinton was vague and kept invoking her husband, for reasons unclear.
Sanders made three important points: he supports single-payer healthcare, he supports free college tuition for state colleges, and he would tax the rich, the way that "old socialist" Eisenhower did, when the tax rate was as high as 90%. He would also break up the big banks, just as Teddy Roosevelt would --emphasizing community banks and credit unions -- and reform the "corrupt campaign finance system."
Clinton was unable to successfully get out from under her big Wall Street contributors, other than to make the dubious claim that she had once been a Senator from New York who saved the banks on 9/11! Clinton also said that wages have not risen since her husband's administration, suggesting that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton had somehow raised wages. She wants to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour, Sanders supports $15. Again, no one in the debate said anything about unions, their role in raising wages, and how unions could be strengthened. Clinton does not want single-payer healthcare, wanting to continue Obamacare and allow the insurance companies to continue to make huge profits.
Sanders correctly said that the war in Iraq was one of the causes of the current crisis in the Middle East and Clinton apologized for supporting it, though she gave no reason why she did so, suggesting that the Middle East was too complicated for her to figure out.
Sanders and Clinton both supported bringing back Glass-Steagall, though neither bothered to explain what it was. It separated commercial banking from investment banking and the repeal was signed by President Clinton.
My personal take on the debate was that Sanders was passionate about getting things done and that Clinton is more of a politician, bending with the wind. Her big triumph, she said , was that 60% of her campaign contributions come from women, which is both unsurprising and irrelevant.
Sanders made three important points: he supports single-payer healthcare, he supports free college tuition for state colleges, and he would tax the rich, the way that "old socialist" Eisenhower did, when the tax rate was as high as 90%. He would also break up the big banks, just as Teddy Roosevelt would --emphasizing community banks and credit unions -- and reform the "corrupt campaign finance system."
Clinton was unable to successfully get out from under her big Wall Street contributors, other than to make the dubious claim that she had once been a Senator from New York who saved the banks on 9/11! Clinton also said that wages have not risen since her husband's administration, suggesting that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton had somehow raised wages. She wants to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour, Sanders supports $15. Again, no one in the debate said anything about unions, their role in raising wages, and how unions could be strengthened. Clinton does not want single-payer healthcare, wanting to continue Obamacare and allow the insurance companies to continue to make huge profits.
Sanders correctly said that the war in Iraq was one of the causes of the current crisis in the Middle East and Clinton apologized for supporting it, though she gave no reason why she did so, suggesting that the Middle East was too complicated for her to figure out.
Sanders and Clinton both supported bringing back Glass-Steagall, though neither bothered to explain what it was. It separated commercial banking from investment banking and the repeal was signed by President Clinton.
My personal take on the debate was that Sanders was passionate about getting things done and that Clinton is more of a politician, bending with the wind. Her big triumph, she said , was that 60% of her campaign contributions come from women, which is both unsurprising and irrelevant.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Republican Debate Nov 10,2015
One expects imbecilities and outright lies from politicians running for office, but not so much undisguised meanness and desire to hurt people. Many of the conservatives we saw seemed moved by nothing as much as hatred. Women, young people, blacks, immigrants, gays, liberals, teachers -- the list could go on for pages. The impression I had was that there was a wish to see the lives of millions and millions of their fellow citizens made miserable.
--Charles Simic on the Republican debates, The New York Review of Books.
Last night's debate was a combination of voodoo economics, Clinton and Obama bashing, and saber rattling. In other words, more of the same.
Chris Christie gave up defending his record to claim repeatedly that he was the only one who could beat Clinton.
Carly Fiorina kept constantly saying "take our government back!" by returning to free market healthcare.
Ben Carson seemed half-asleep most of the time and said he did not mind being vetted, but please vet everyone else, too.
Trump said "let's make America great again" by deporting all illegal immigrants.
Rick Santorum almost made sense when he suggested better jobs for those not going to college, but did not want to raise the minimum wage; none of the other candidates wanted to raise it either.
Bobby Jindal said he was the only one who can stop, and even reverse, our current path to socialism.
Mike Huckabee wants to do away with the income tax altogether and replace it with a sales tax, or what he called a "fair tax."
Marco Rubio wants more welders and "less" philosophers (presumably he meant "fewer", though like many of the candidates he had some trouble with syntax). Rubio also said that in 35 of 50 states childcare costs more than college, something he wants to change by giving more tax credits to families. The idea of subsidized daycare I'm sure never occurred to him.
John Kasich wants everyone to live up to their "God-given" potential and was the only participant to use the argumentum ad auctoritatem, i.e, Michael Novak.
Ted Cruz wants to raise the retirement age, without mentioning that this could be harmful to blue-collar workers.
Jeb Bush seemed flustered throughout and was concerned about the Russian presence in Syria. He wants to have a "free fly zone," though he was no better at explaining what that was and how it worked than were some of the other candidates in explaining Dodd-Frank, inveighed against almost as much as Obamacare.
Rand Paul did make a good point that if you want to increase the military, as everyone does but him, you will need a way to pay for it.
Few of the candidates responded directly to the questions, preferring to talk about cronyism in Washington and severe unemployment. Once again no one asked about unions or talked about them, even though the decline of unions correlates directly with the increase in inequality.
--Charles Simic on the Republican debates, The New York Review of Books.
Last night's debate was a combination of voodoo economics, Clinton and Obama bashing, and saber rattling. In other words, more of the same.
Chris Christie gave up defending his record to claim repeatedly that he was the only one who could beat Clinton.
Carly Fiorina kept constantly saying "take our government back!" by returning to free market healthcare.
Ben Carson seemed half-asleep most of the time and said he did not mind being vetted, but please vet everyone else, too.
Trump said "let's make America great again" by deporting all illegal immigrants.
Rick Santorum almost made sense when he suggested better jobs for those not going to college, but did not want to raise the minimum wage; none of the other candidates wanted to raise it either.
Bobby Jindal said he was the only one who can stop, and even reverse, our current path to socialism.
Mike Huckabee wants to do away with the income tax altogether and replace it with a sales tax, or what he called a "fair tax."
Marco Rubio wants more welders and "less" philosophers (presumably he meant "fewer", though like many of the candidates he had some trouble with syntax). Rubio also said that in 35 of 50 states childcare costs more than college, something he wants to change by giving more tax credits to families. The idea of subsidized daycare I'm sure never occurred to him.
John Kasich wants everyone to live up to their "God-given" potential and was the only participant to use the argumentum ad auctoritatem, i.e, Michael Novak.
Ted Cruz wants to raise the retirement age, without mentioning that this could be harmful to blue-collar workers.
Jeb Bush seemed flustered throughout and was concerned about the Russian presence in Syria. He wants to have a "free fly zone," though he was no better at explaining what that was and how it worked than were some of the other candidates in explaining Dodd-Frank, inveighed against almost as much as Obamacare.
Rand Paul did make a good point that if you want to increase the military, as everyone does but him, you will need a way to pay for it.
Few of the candidates responded directly to the questions, preferring to talk about cronyism in Washington and severe unemployment. Once again no one asked about unions or talked about them, even though the decline of unions correlates directly with the increase in inequality.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Stephen Colbert and the Late Show
Last night I watched Stephen Colbert's The Late Show and was appalled at what I saw and heard: primitive jokes and inane conversation. You may wonder why I tuned into a show that seems to appeal to inebriated high school students who watch while they eat their meatball subs and drink beer. I did so last night because The New York Times said that author Karl Ove Knausgaard was going to be on. Knausgaard did not appear; instead they had Bryan Cranston talking about his new movie, Trumbo, as he and Colbert seemed to know nothing about the Hollywood Ten or even in what decade WW II took place! So they quickly switched to more primitive humor, about looking at the stars and thinking about God, humor that would have been considered too primitive for Abbot and Costello! Colbert seems as witless as they come and his musical guest, one Shamir, was as primitive musically as Colbert's "jokes" about Guinness and Mexican restaurants.
I should have known that an intelligent writer such as the neurotic Knausgaard would not feel comfortable in this crude setting, which included a tour of New Orleans bars and streets with The Late Show's musical director, Jon Baptiste, which told us exactly nothing and included additional unfunny jokes. Whatever happened to intelligent discourse? Even Johnny Carson had an opera singer on occasionally and Ed Sullivan had ballet dancers. David Susskind had "Open End," where he would talk with writers and artists. Perhaps I am an old fart, but it seems to me that the audience for these current late night shows (I also sat through Jimmy Fallon's show once) don't have enough intelligence to realize that their intelligence is being insulted!
I should have known that an intelligent writer such as the neurotic Knausgaard would not feel comfortable in this crude setting, which included a tour of New Orleans bars and streets with The Late Show's musical director, Jon Baptiste, which told us exactly nothing and included additional unfunny jokes. Whatever happened to intelligent discourse? Even Johnny Carson had an opera singer on occasionally and Ed Sullivan had ballet dancers. David Susskind had "Open End," where he would talk with writers and artists. Perhaps I am an old fart, but it seems to me that the audience for these current late night shows (I also sat through Jimmy Fallon's show once) don't have enough intelligence to realize that their intelligence is being insulted!
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Cable TV and What I Am Watching These Days.
Last week the cable guy came --we have Time-Warner -- and gave us a new box. The box we had for several years could no longer get a picture from HBO or Showtime and the cable guy said it was just the start of the box's failure. The new box will now record twice as much on the DVR as the old box, which somewhat makes up for the fact I can no longer record on VHS tapes (of which I threw out many, mostly unwatched, when we moved two years ago). Previously when I ran out of room on the DVR I would record those movies (mostly) on VHS tapes and then delete them. When I could no longer do that (for reasons that were never truly explained to my satisfaction) I had the dilemma of deleting or watching when I may not have been in the mood for that particular film. Why have cable at all I am sometimes asked. Mainly for Turner Classic Movies, I reply. For one who loves classical films it would be a difficult channel to do without, for Turner shows movies uncut, uninterrupted and in the proper aspect ratio, It also shows many classical films that are otherwise unavailable. Someone recently asked me if it wasn't the case that all of the movies on Turner were available on DVD. Would that it were so! I did a count on a random month and determined that 80% of what Turner shows is not available on tape or DVD! Sure, most of Hitchcock is available on DVD, but for those of us who love Borzage, Ulmer, Joseph H. Lewis, Frank Tashlin and many other relatively unheralded geniuses of classical film it is an entirely different matter.
My 17-year-old son Gideon and my wife Susan have little interest in TV, though Susan does like the movies of John Ford and Raoul Walsh and watches them with me, as well as using her limited time to watch more obscure movies by Val Lewton and others who make impressive films in sixty to seventy-five minutes. And we do allow our four-year-old to watch an hour of TV a day; she has moved from Scooby-Doo to Sofia the First to, currently, Looney Toons, recorded from Boomerang. Many of these are mediocre. of course (we always watch with her) but some by Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng are quite brilliant indeed.
I do watch some shows that are not movies. Currently these include:
On broad cast TV: The Good Wife and Blindspot. The Good Wife, produced by Michelle King and Robert King, stars a low-key Julianne Margulies as a lawyer with a politician husband, with a complex Perry-Mason-style approach. Blindspot, created by Martin Gero, is the kind of secret conspiracy programmer for which I have a weakness, i.e, I wouldn't recommend to others the way I would The Good Wife.
Showtime: The Affair and Homeland. The Affair, produced by Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi (who did the fascinating In Treatment for HBO) is an effectively class-conscious melodrama about love and money, though it does include some irritating time-jumping, as too many shows these days do. Homeland is produced by Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, who did 24; one season of Homeland is equivalent in plot to one episode of 24. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and Mandy Patinkin and Clair Danes are both effective, each neurotic in their own way. Still, there is too much mysterious plotting, even for a spy drama.
HBO: The Leftovers. I had read Tom Perrota's original book but the first season lost me along the way, though the episodes that focused on individual grief were powerful. This season Damon Lidelof, who sent us over a cliff with the originally promising Lost, is leading the league in obscurity, which he seems to confuse with profundity, though he is no Antonioni. The theme song, by Iris Dement, is quite wonderful.
My 17-year-old son Gideon and my wife Susan have little interest in TV, though Susan does like the movies of John Ford and Raoul Walsh and watches them with me, as well as using her limited time to watch more obscure movies by Val Lewton and others who make impressive films in sixty to seventy-five minutes. And we do allow our four-year-old to watch an hour of TV a day; she has moved from Scooby-Doo to Sofia the First to, currently, Looney Toons, recorded from Boomerang. Many of these are mediocre. of course (we always watch with her) but some by Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng are quite brilliant indeed.
I do watch some shows that are not movies. Currently these include:
On broad cast TV: The Good Wife and Blindspot. The Good Wife, produced by Michelle King and Robert King, stars a low-key Julianne Margulies as a lawyer with a politician husband, with a complex Perry-Mason-style approach. Blindspot, created by Martin Gero, is the kind of secret conspiracy programmer for which I have a weakness, i.e, I wouldn't recommend to others the way I would The Good Wife.
Showtime: The Affair and Homeland. The Affair, produced by Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi (who did the fascinating In Treatment for HBO) is an effectively class-conscious melodrama about love and money, though it does include some irritating time-jumping, as too many shows these days do. Homeland is produced by Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, who did 24; one season of Homeland is equivalent in plot to one episode of 24. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and Mandy Patinkin and Clair Danes are both effective, each neurotic in their own way. Still, there is too much mysterious plotting, even for a spy drama.
HBO: The Leftovers. I had read Tom Perrota's original book but the first season lost me along the way, though the episodes that focused on individual grief were powerful. This season Damon Lidelof, who sent us over a cliff with the originally promising Lost, is leading the league in obscurity, which he seems to confuse with profundity, though he is no Antonioni. The theme song, by Iris Dement, is quite wonderful.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Republcan "Debates" Oct 28, 2015
The reason I put "debate" in quotation marks is because there is very little disagreement among the Republican contenders: Pataki accepts that abortion is legal, Rand Paul does not want to build up the military the way the other candidates do, and that is about it for dissent from the party line: tax less, spend less (except for the military, where more needs to be spent), bomb the hell out of those who we think are out to get us. The candidates also don't like Hillary Clinton, who Bobby Jindal says "would take us down the road to socialism" (he didn't need to say he thought that would be a bad thing; he has been complaining about the left and socialists continuously). Ted Cruz at one point said that listening to the Democratic debate was like listening to a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, though I wonder how much of the audience understood that remark.
Each candidate tried to emphasize either their experience in government ("I balanced the budget") or outside it ("I made difficult decisions"), while trying to portray themselves as tougher than any of the other candidates. Lindsey Graham did the most saber-rattling and each candidate had some voodoo economic scheme, most of which relied on dubious and disproven supply-side ideas. Everyone praised the working class, often giving their own personal histories of deprivation, but once again there was nobody to defend -- or even mention -- unions, collective bargaining being one of the most successful ways to raise wages.
Ted Cruz complained that the moderators would not let them discuss the issues. What issues? Everyone wants to be rid of Obamacare, for instance, but no one had any suggestions about how to make sure that the people who need healthcare get it. My favorite comment in the debate was from the self-styled populist Rick Santorum, who said that Obamacare was designed to drive small insurance companies out of business, demonizing large insurance companies and then insisting that that proved we need single-payer healthcare! Would that it were so. I think we started on the road to a single-payer system with Medicare and we will get there eventually, long after every other country has it.
With all the militarism in this debate I am only slightly surprised that none of the candidates suggested reinstituting the draft. That they are correctly afraid of the risk of doing this is, to me, an indication that most voters are not as fond of wars as the candidates, especially younger voters who would have to do the fighting.
The strangest question in the debate was asked of all the participants: do you think the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday? I did not understand that question at all, unless it was meant to suggest that everyone is hung over that day, which doesn't seem like a reason to have a holiday.
Each candidate tried to emphasize either their experience in government ("I balanced the budget") or outside it ("I made difficult decisions"), while trying to portray themselves as tougher than any of the other candidates. Lindsey Graham did the most saber-rattling and each candidate had some voodoo economic scheme, most of which relied on dubious and disproven supply-side ideas. Everyone praised the working class, often giving their own personal histories of deprivation, but once again there was nobody to defend -- or even mention -- unions, collective bargaining being one of the most successful ways to raise wages.
Ted Cruz complained that the moderators would not let them discuss the issues. What issues? Everyone wants to be rid of Obamacare, for instance, but no one had any suggestions about how to make sure that the people who need healthcare get it. My favorite comment in the debate was from the self-styled populist Rick Santorum, who said that Obamacare was designed to drive small insurance companies out of business, demonizing large insurance companies and then insisting that that proved we need single-payer healthcare! Would that it were so. I think we started on the road to a single-payer system with Medicare and we will get there eventually, long after every other country has it.
With all the militarism in this debate I am only slightly surprised that none of the candidates suggested reinstituting the draft. That they are correctly afraid of the risk of doing this is, to me, an indication that most voters are not as fond of wars as the candidates, especially younger voters who would have to do the fighting.
The strangest question in the debate was asked of all the participants: do you think the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday? I did not understand that question at all, unless it was meant to suggest that everyone is hung over that day, which doesn't seem like a reason to have a holiday.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Democratic Party Debate Oct 13,2015
I don't have too much to say about the Democratic debates. All of the candidates seem to be decent people, each one trying to emphasize at least one aspect that makes them unique: Webb with his military service, Chafee with the fact that he has never been associated with any scandal, O' Malley with his support of renewable energy, Clinton with being female (I also was annoyed by Clinton's constant references to the potential of every child's "God-given" talent. Suppose one does not believe in God?), Sanders with his anti-billionaire populism. My vote, on the issues, goes to Sanders. He is the only candidate advocating a single-payer healthcare system, free college tuition for public colleges, expanded social security and the importance of privacy. He was attacked for being a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, which is actually to his credit, and voted against the war in Iraq, i.e., he doesn't believe in useless,destructive and stupid wars. It was suggested that, as a senator from a rural state, he is not as much of a supporter of gun control as he should be but he did make an important point about that: many people who need to see mental health specialists do not do so because either they cannot afford it or their insurance will not pay for it.
I was slightly disappointed that with all the references to inequality there was no reference whatsoever to labor unions, whose shrinking size and power correlates with O'Malley's repeated statement that 70% of us are making the same or less than we were ten years ago. Nor was there any reference to art or books of any kind; Clinton repeatedly referred to experts but never identified them. Perhaps it is too much to expect busy politicians to read books or go to the opera and ballet performances, though I think they could benefit enormously by doing so.
I was slightly disappointed that with all the references to inequality there was no reference whatsoever to labor unions, whose shrinking size and power correlates with O'Malley's repeated statement that 70% of us are making the same or less than we were ten years ago. Nor was there any reference to art or books of any kind; Clinton repeatedly referred to experts but never identified them. Perhaps it is too much to expect busy politicians to read books or go to the opera and ballet performances, though I think they could benefit enormously by doing so.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Linda Chavez on Donald Trump
As an addendum to my comments on the Republican debates I want to recommend "Donald Trump's America" by Linda Chavez in the October issue of Commentary. Chavez gives us a much-needed history lesson, pointing out:
The anti-immigrant rancor that is fueling Trump's popularity is nothing new in American history. A populist backlash has accompanied every wave of large-scale immigration, whether we are talking about German and Irish immigrants in the 19th century or Jews, Italians, Poles, and other Southern and Eastern Europeans in the early 20th century.
The same concerns were directed at earlier immigrants --crime, stealing jobs, lack of assimilation --that are now directed at today's immigrants from Latin America. One reason for the rapid assimilation of these earlier groups, especially in the second generation, is that everyone born here is an American citizen, and now Trump wants to revoke that birthright!
Trump also wants to deport all illegal immigrants, something that would take up to twenty years to accomplish and would cost more than $400 billion dollars, not to mention the havoc it would wreak with families. Trump probably does not even know that this has been tried before: during the Great Depression more than 400,000 Mexicans were deported, using tyrannical and unconstitutional methods. What we most need to do is find a pathway to citizenship or legal status for illegal immigrants, nearly two-thirds of whom have lived here for more than ten years.
The anti-immigrant rancor that is fueling Trump's popularity is nothing new in American history. A populist backlash has accompanied every wave of large-scale immigration, whether we are talking about German and Irish immigrants in the 19th century or Jews, Italians, Poles, and other Southern and Eastern Europeans in the early 20th century.
The same concerns were directed at earlier immigrants --crime, stealing jobs, lack of assimilation --that are now directed at today's immigrants from Latin America. One reason for the rapid assimilation of these earlier groups, especially in the second generation, is that everyone born here is an American citizen, and now Trump wants to revoke that birthright!
Trump also wants to deport all illegal immigrants, something that would take up to twenty years to accomplish and would cost more than $400 billion dollars, not to mention the havoc it would wreak with families. Trump probably does not even know that this has been tried before: during the Great Depression more than 400,000 Mexicans were deported, using tyrannical and unconstitutional methods. What we most need to do is find a pathway to citizenship or legal status for illegal immigrants, nearly two-thirds of whom have lived here for more than ten years.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Republican Debates Sept. 16, 2015
The Republican debate on Sept. 16 was a sorry sight of hypocrisy and demagoguery. The only candidates that showed any sense of intelligence or dignity were Rand Paul and George Pataki, staking out their libertarian and liberal Republican positions, respectively. Rand Paul stated that the invasion of Iraq made things even worse and Pataki stating that we should follow laws on which the Supreme Court has ruled. All the other candidates tried to outdo each other in how much they would beef up the military and bomb the hell out of anyone who doesn't "respect" us. At one point the question was raised about birthright -- should everyone born here be a citizen -- since few other countries allow this, but no one said we should have single-payer healthcare because everyone else does! Obamacare received much criticism but no one suggested an alternative that would help those without health insurance. (My own feeling is that we will have single-payer healthcare eventually, especially now that Medicare is generally accepted.)
Medicare was originally demonized as "socialized medicine" and it was mordantly amusing to hear Bobby Jindal rail against the Democrats because they had a "socialist" running for President, making it sound like something akin to a child molester. Most of the other candidates repeatedly referred to themselves as conservatives, with Obama and Hilary Clinton as "left-wingers." And the specter of communism was not far away, as references were made to Putin backing Syria as a way of re-establishing "the evil empire." Rick Santorum was the only one attempting to establish himself as a populist, without using that word (most of the audience would probably not know the term), supporting an increased minimum wage and concern for the working class. Scott Walker of the Progressive state of Wisconsin said he thought increasing the minimum age was not the answer, but rather more education to allow people to get better jobs. That was okay as far as it went, except that Walker had engineered a drastic reduction in the budget for the University of Wisconsin. Education was only mentioned once, with a passing reference to "the common core," otherwise it was totally absent from the debate, and of course no one even mentioned Obama's plan to make community college free. Also not mentioned, and I blame this on the CNN softball questioning, were labor unions. Many of the candidates have bragged about their union-busting successes , though the evidence strongly indicates a relationship between the decline in unions and stagnant salaries, all those suffering people living, as Marco Rubio put it, " from paycheck to paycheck." No one had any suggestions for what could be done about this.
I was also amused that most of the candidates introduced themselves by making reference to their long marriages and their children, probably an indirect attack on Trump and his multiple wives. The old Republican term "family values" was never mentioned. There was also no mention of the controversial National Endowment for the Arts and no mention of literature, music, painting, dance, etc.
It was interesting, and probably a coincidence, that PBS broadcast its documentary "Walt Disney" on the two days before the most recent debate. Neil Genzlinger mentioned, in his review in The New York Times, Disney's "staid, white-washed view of America" (the film was written by Mark Zwonitzer and directed by Sarah Colt). The Republican candidates seem to want such a world, which those of us who grew up in small towns know never existed and never will. Though Vietnam was not mentioned in the debate it seems that many people did not learn anything from that destructive war. Rand Paul gets credit for at least saying that war is a last resort, not a first, and should be declared by Congress and not the President.
Medicare was originally demonized as "socialized medicine" and it was mordantly amusing to hear Bobby Jindal rail against the Democrats because they had a "socialist" running for President, making it sound like something akin to a child molester. Most of the other candidates repeatedly referred to themselves as conservatives, with Obama and Hilary Clinton as "left-wingers." And the specter of communism was not far away, as references were made to Putin backing Syria as a way of re-establishing "the evil empire." Rick Santorum was the only one attempting to establish himself as a populist, without using that word (most of the audience would probably not know the term), supporting an increased minimum wage and concern for the working class. Scott Walker of the Progressive state of Wisconsin said he thought increasing the minimum age was not the answer, but rather more education to allow people to get better jobs. That was okay as far as it went, except that Walker had engineered a drastic reduction in the budget for the University of Wisconsin. Education was only mentioned once, with a passing reference to "the common core," otherwise it was totally absent from the debate, and of course no one even mentioned Obama's plan to make community college free. Also not mentioned, and I blame this on the CNN softball questioning, were labor unions. Many of the candidates have bragged about their union-busting successes , though the evidence strongly indicates a relationship between the decline in unions and stagnant salaries, all those suffering people living, as Marco Rubio put it, " from paycheck to paycheck." No one had any suggestions for what could be done about this.
I was also amused that most of the candidates introduced themselves by making reference to their long marriages and their children, probably an indirect attack on Trump and his multiple wives. The old Republican term "family values" was never mentioned. There was also no mention of the controversial National Endowment for the Arts and no mention of literature, music, painting, dance, etc.
It was interesting, and probably a coincidence, that PBS broadcast its documentary "Walt Disney" on the two days before the most recent debate. Neil Genzlinger mentioned, in his review in The New York Times, Disney's "staid, white-washed view of America" (the film was written by Mark Zwonitzer and directed by Sarah Colt). The Republican candidates seem to want such a world, which those of us who grew up in small towns know never existed and never will. Though Vietnam was not mentioned in the debate it seems that many people did not learn anything from that destructive war. Rand Paul gets credit for at least saying that war is a last resort, not a first, and should be declared by Congress and not the President.
Friday, August 7, 2015
August 6 2015: Republican Debates and Jon Stewart
The Republican debates were a sorry spectacle indeed. Only a couple of relatively intelligent things were said. Chris Christie outlined a proposal to change Social Security benefits and governor John Kasich of Ohio felt the need to defend taking healthcare money because it would help those who needed it. The candidates had apparently all forgotten about Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and they all advocated building up the armed forces, sending ground troops where needed and bombing the hell out of anyone who did not "respect" us. Everyone was opposed to abortion (with the honorable exception of former governor George Pataki, who said it had been the law for 42 years and it was time to stop trying to change that), some even backpedaling on their acceptance of exceptions for rape and incest. Everybody wanted to get rid of Obamacare but no one offered an alternative. Both Rand Paul and Rick Perry gave Donald Trump a hard time because he had once supported single- payer healthcare, a position they both said was not allowed to Republicans! All the candidates said they wanted to restore the "American Dream" but none of them suggested how that could be done. The only mention of unions was by Christie and Jeb Bush, who bragged about how they had fought and defeated the teachers' unions. That one of the well-established reasons for the shrinking of the middle class is the shrinking power of unions was not even mentioned by any of the participants or the well-coifed moderators. Chris Christie, Trump, and Rand Paul competed for worst "hair."
The problem with Jon Stewart is that most of what he parodies -- politicians and media -- is already something of a parody. Are those who found him funny totally unfamiliar with Chaplin, Keaton, Preston Sturges, Lubitsch, Evelyn Waugh, Lennie Bruce? I strongly recommend the book Parodies: An Anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm --and After. Compiled with an introduction and notes by Dwight Macdonald (1960, The Modern Library), particularly the sections "self-parodies: conscious" and "self-parodies: unconscious."
The problem with Jon Stewart is that most of what he parodies -- politicians and media -- is already something of a parody. Are those who found him funny totally unfamiliar with Chaplin, Keaton, Preston Sturges, Lubitsch, Evelyn Waugh, Lennie Bruce? I strongly recommend the book Parodies: An Anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm --and After. Compiled with an introduction and notes by Dwight Macdonald (1960, The Modern Library), particularly the sections "self-parodies: conscious" and "self-parodies: unconscious."
Thursday, July 30, 2015
The Golden Age of Radio: June 26, 2015
Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio (WBAI, 99.5, 7-9 PM Sundays) this Sunday was a fund-raiser, but also had time for tributes to Peg Lynch, who died on July 24, and two important radio personalities who were born on July 26: Gracie Allen (1895) and Jean Shepard ((1921). WBAI does not have underwriters or corporate sponsors of any kind, raising money exclusively from their listeners.
Peg Lynch is sometimes credited with inventing the sitcom, by now a rather decadent format. But her show, Ethel and Albert (it ran from 1944 to 1950) was not about nothing, but rather about how important and symbolic even the smallest things can be. Schmid played a later version of the show, The Couple Next Door, from 1957, script by Lynch (she wrote all her shows) in which the car keys are lost in the snow and then when they are found there is no car: it had been brought in for repairs and no one had bothered to pick it up. As John Dunning wrote in The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Oxford University Press,1998), "Entire episodes could be consumed with the principles standing at the kitchen sink, talking and doing the dishes." and the humor came from the interplay of the stars, Lynch and Alan Bunce, not from glib one-liners.
Then from Schmid, came George and Gracie, from 1940, in which George Burns tries to talk Gracie out of running for President (the symbol of her "Surprise Party" was going to be a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch, the slogan "it's in the bag."). Burns and Allen had brought their vaudeville act to radio and even the addition of numerous bit players and singers did not keep the act from becoming rather tired, though Gracie, in the brilliant manner of Stepin Fetchit, used her daffy persona to deploy her underlying intelligence.
I first encountered Jean Shepherd in Playboy, which ran his amusing stories on a regular basis when I was an adolescent. Then when I came to New York for college I started to listen to his monologues on WOR, until he went off the air in 1977, coming on WBAI in the 90's to read his stories. Many of these monologues are quite dated, though they are fascinating artifacts of the 60's and 70's. But when he concentrated on stories of his childhood I find his monologues funny and moving, whether they actually happened or not (irrelevant, just as with Knausgaard's stories). This Sunday Schmid played a program from July 15, 1966, in which Shep rides for the first time on the roller-coaster called, for some reason nobody knows, "The Bobs," in River View amusement park, with a wonderful evocation of the combination of bravado and fear felt by a teen-ager.
Peg Lynch is sometimes credited with inventing the sitcom, by now a rather decadent format. But her show, Ethel and Albert (it ran from 1944 to 1950) was not about nothing, but rather about how important and symbolic even the smallest things can be. Schmid played a later version of the show, The Couple Next Door, from 1957, script by Lynch (she wrote all her shows) in which the car keys are lost in the snow and then when they are found there is no car: it had been brought in for repairs and no one had bothered to pick it up. As John Dunning wrote in The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Oxford University Press,1998), "Entire episodes could be consumed with the principles standing at the kitchen sink, talking and doing the dishes." and the humor came from the interplay of the stars, Lynch and Alan Bunce, not from glib one-liners.
Then from Schmid, came George and Gracie, from 1940, in which George Burns tries to talk Gracie out of running for President (the symbol of her "Surprise Party" was going to be a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch, the slogan "it's in the bag."). Burns and Allen had brought their vaudeville act to radio and even the addition of numerous bit players and singers did not keep the act from becoming rather tired, though Gracie, in the brilliant manner of Stepin Fetchit, used her daffy persona to deploy her underlying intelligence.
I first encountered Jean Shepherd in Playboy, which ran his amusing stories on a regular basis when I was an adolescent. Then when I came to New York for college I started to listen to his monologues on WOR, until he went off the air in 1977, coming on WBAI in the 90's to read his stories. Many of these monologues are quite dated, though they are fascinating artifacts of the 60's and 70's. But when he concentrated on stories of his childhood I find his monologues funny and moving, whether they actually happened or not (irrelevant, just as with Knausgaard's stories). This Sunday Schmid played a program from July 15, 1966, in which Shep rides for the first time on the roller-coaster called, for some reason nobody knows, "The Bobs," in River View amusement park, with a wonderful evocation of the combination of bravado and fear felt by a teen-ager.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Scooby-Doo
The other animated show my daughter (who will be four in September) likes is Scooby-Doo. The Boomerang channel shows two versions of this show, both from Hanna-Barbera, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969-86) and What's New, Scooby Doo? (2002-2006). There is little difference between the shows except that in the later version there are cell phones and laptops and more (insipid) songs. The plots of the shows -- or should I say the plot, since they are all the same and as rigid as a Noh drama (to which there are actually similarities, including humans masquerading as ghosts) --are how a bunch of kids exposes monsters who turn out to be crooks trying to scare people off so they can cash in one way or another. When the culprit or culprits are exposed they always blame "those meddling kids." Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy, with their dog Scooby-Doo always run from the monster until they figure out how to trap and expose him (or, less often, her). I think what appeals to children about this show is the helpful and intelligent dog, who can "talk" to a limited extent, and the fact that a group of kids are not too scared to solve a mystery that baffles adults. The group consists of the beatnik Shaggy, the all-American Fred, the glamorous Daphne and the nerd Velma, who is always losing her glasses. In other words, most kids can identify with one or more of these characters.
The animation in these shows, like others from Hanna-Barbera, is cheap and crummy. It is done by a process called limited animation, which means very limited and repetitious movement: a good portion of each show consists of the same shots of the lead characters running to or from something, matted against slightly changing backgrounds, Obviously most kids don't care much about the quality of the animation; my daughter loves to see which supernatural phenomenon the gang is going, in their van call The Mystery Machine, to solve. The monsters are only moderately scary and I think my daughter always feel reassured that the kids will solve the mystery and the bad guys will be exposed, i.e, there is order and justice in the world.
The animation in these shows, like others from Hanna-Barbera, is cheap and crummy. It is done by a process called limited animation, which means very limited and repetitious movement: a good portion of each show consists of the same shots of the lead characters running to or from something, matted against slightly changing backgrounds, Obviously most kids don't care much about the quality of the animation; my daughter loves to see which supernatural phenomenon the gang is going, in their van call The Mystery Machine, to solve. The monsters are only moderately scary and I think my daughter always feel reassured that the kids will solve the mystery and the bad guys will be exposed, i.e, there is order and justice in the world.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Sofia the First
Sofia the First is a show on the Disney and Disney Junior channels that my three-year-old (soon to be four) daughter loves. I think, as Susan and I watch the show with her each time, that the things that are most appealing to her about it are: 1) Sofia was a commoner whose mother married a king (so Sofia has to learn how to behave as a princess behaves) 2)Sofia has a magic amulet that allows her to converse with animals, her favorite being rabbit Clover and 3) Sofia learns on her own, often being wiser than her mother and stepfather.
My daughter likes to watch the same episodes again and again, her current favorites being "Substitute Cedric" and "The Enchanted Feast." In the former some pranksters from Hexley Hall, the school for sorcerers, invade Royal Prep while the teachers, good fairies from Sleeping Beauty, are at a fairy convention and Cedric, the Royal Sorcerer, is the substitute teacher. Cedric is immobilized by the pranksters but teaches the children "the sorcerer's secret" by singing a song about it. The sorcerer's secret is never to give up and, with this in mind, the students stop the pranksters from filling Royal Prep with bubbles in order to float it away. In "The Enchanted Feast" the bad fairy Miss Nettle disguises herself as the sorcerer Sasha and immobilizes Cedric and the royal family (King Roland II, Queen Miranda and Sofia's stepbrother and stepsister, James and Amber) and attempts to steal Sofia's magic amulet. Sofia stops Miss Nettle with the help of Clover and the appearance of Snow White (Disney princesses appear regularly on the show to advise Sofia).
The show is didactic in a low-key way and encourages tolerance and understanding: Sofia stays friends with commoners Jade and Ruby and brings the trolls out of exile (they were mistakenly banished to their caves by a previous king). The computer-generated animation is, by my standards, rather primitive (minimal movement and facial expression) but the animation is carried off rather successfully by the voices, particularly Ariel Winter as the eight-year-old Sofia (Winter herself is 17) and the songs, written by John Kavanaugh and Erica Rothschild. The shows are all directed by Disney TV veteran Jamie Mitchell.
I am particularly impressed by the power to talk to animals that Sofia's magic amulet gives her. I read Hugh Lofting's Doctor Doolittle books (written in the 1920's) when I was a child and wished that I could talk to animals; I knew they would be more understanding and sympathetic than the adult humans I had to deal with.
My daughter likes to watch the same episodes again and again, her current favorites being "Substitute Cedric" and "The Enchanted Feast." In the former some pranksters from Hexley Hall, the school for sorcerers, invade Royal Prep while the teachers, good fairies from Sleeping Beauty, are at a fairy convention and Cedric, the Royal Sorcerer, is the substitute teacher. Cedric is immobilized by the pranksters but teaches the children "the sorcerer's secret" by singing a song about it. The sorcerer's secret is never to give up and, with this in mind, the students stop the pranksters from filling Royal Prep with bubbles in order to float it away. In "The Enchanted Feast" the bad fairy Miss Nettle disguises herself as the sorcerer Sasha and immobilizes Cedric and the royal family (King Roland II, Queen Miranda and Sofia's stepbrother and stepsister, James and Amber) and attempts to steal Sofia's magic amulet. Sofia stops Miss Nettle with the help of Clover and the appearance of Snow White (Disney princesses appear regularly on the show to advise Sofia).
The show is didactic in a low-key way and encourages tolerance and understanding: Sofia stays friends with commoners Jade and Ruby and brings the trolls out of exile (they were mistakenly banished to their caves by a previous king). The computer-generated animation is, by my standards, rather primitive (minimal movement and facial expression) but the animation is carried off rather successfully by the voices, particularly Ariel Winter as the eight-year-old Sofia (Winter herself is 17) and the songs, written by John Kavanaugh and Erica Rothschild. The shows are all directed by Disney TV veteran Jamie Mitchell.
I am particularly impressed by the power to talk to animals that Sofia's magic amulet gives her. I read Hugh Lofting's Doctor Doolittle books (written in the 1920's) when I was a child and wished that I could talk to animals; I knew they would be more understanding and sympathetic than the adult humans I had to deal with.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
The Golden Age of Radio, April 25, 2015
Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio, is on WBAI, 99.5, every Sunday night from 7-9 PM.
The show April 25,2015 started with the last episode of The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen and was followed by three shows written by Cathleeen Hite, from Gunsmoke, Escape and Night Beat.
The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen ran on the Mutual network from 1947-1948, was written by Gil Doud and Bob Talman and directed by the versatile Elliot Lewis, who also starred as Master Phillip Carney, captain of the cargo ship on its route through Asia. The episode Schmid played on April 25 was 'The Winchester Rifle and the Ambitious Groom'", about the murder of the groom at a wedding on Singapore, where one "never goes to bed without them brass knuckles." At the end, as usual, Carney and his crew are off again to the freedom of the ocean.
Nightbeat ran from 1950-1952 on NBC and the show Schmid played on this date was "The Bug Murders", broadcast on Sept. 25, 1952, directed by Warren Lewis and written by the prolific Cathleen Hite. Frank Lovejoy plays a Chicago reporter covering the night shift and solves a series of murders that turn out to be perpetrated by the psychologist who had volunteered at the newspaper to help solve them. It is a show full of the sounds of the city and the people of the night.
Escape ran from 1947 to 1954 on CBS and this night's episode came near the end, "The Eye of Evil" from July 17, 1954. The reliable John Dehner plays a man who goes to Burma to find a friend, the plot being quite similar to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The show was written by Hite and directed by Norman Macdonnel, and effectively captures the disorientation an American would feel in a Burmese jungle.
Gunsmoke ran on radio from 1952-1961, on CBS, and the star, William Conrad, was always bitter that the TV version replaced him with James Arness (some may remember that Conrad was a bit portly). Gunsmoke was one of the first "adult Westerns," with its gritty realisn, and Schmid played the episode "Nelly Sitden", from May 1,1960, where Sheriff Matt Dillon gets injured by Indians and is taken in by an elderly woman, who had been around for many years and was friends with the Indians. Cathleen Hite wrote the script and Norman Mcdonnel directed.
Up to this point there has been very little written on the aesthetics and auteurs of radio, a medium that had only begun to reach its artistic peak when it was eclipsed by television, where one did not need one's imagination so much (three of the four shows mentioned above did not take place in contemporary America). If you are interested in learning more about radio you can listen to Schmid's show every week on WBAI and read John Dunning's excellent On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Oxford University Press, 1998). There are many shows that survive and they are readily available on the internet, some of them free and some quite inexpensively on MP3 disks.
The show April 25,2015 started with the last episode of The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen and was followed by three shows written by Cathleeen Hite, from Gunsmoke, Escape and Night Beat.
The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen ran on the Mutual network from 1947-1948, was written by Gil Doud and Bob Talman and directed by the versatile Elliot Lewis, who also starred as Master Phillip Carney, captain of the cargo ship on its route through Asia. The episode Schmid played on April 25 was 'The Winchester Rifle and the Ambitious Groom'", about the murder of the groom at a wedding on Singapore, where one "never goes to bed without them brass knuckles." At the end, as usual, Carney and his crew are off again to the freedom of the ocean.
Nightbeat ran from 1950-1952 on NBC and the show Schmid played on this date was "The Bug Murders", broadcast on Sept. 25, 1952, directed by Warren Lewis and written by the prolific Cathleen Hite. Frank Lovejoy plays a Chicago reporter covering the night shift and solves a series of murders that turn out to be perpetrated by the psychologist who had volunteered at the newspaper to help solve them. It is a show full of the sounds of the city and the people of the night.
Escape ran from 1947 to 1954 on CBS and this night's episode came near the end, "The Eye of Evil" from July 17, 1954. The reliable John Dehner plays a man who goes to Burma to find a friend, the plot being quite similar to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The show was written by Hite and directed by Norman Macdonnel, and effectively captures the disorientation an American would feel in a Burmese jungle.
Gunsmoke ran on radio from 1952-1961, on CBS, and the star, William Conrad, was always bitter that the TV version replaced him with James Arness (some may remember that Conrad was a bit portly). Gunsmoke was one of the first "adult Westerns," with its gritty realisn, and Schmid played the episode "Nelly Sitden", from May 1,1960, where Sheriff Matt Dillon gets injured by Indians and is taken in by an elderly woman, who had been around for many years and was friends with the Indians. Cathleen Hite wrote the script and Norman Mcdonnel directed.
Up to this point there has been very little written on the aesthetics and auteurs of radio, a medium that had only begun to reach its artistic peak when it was eclipsed by television, where one did not need one's imagination so much (three of the four shows mentioned above did not take place in contemporary America). If you are interested in learning more about radio you can listen to Schmid's show every week on WBAI and read John Dunning's excellent On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Oxford University Press, 1998). There are many shows that survive and they are readily available on the internet, some of them free and some quite inexpensively on MP3 disks.
Friday, May 15, 2015
A Prairie Home Companion May 10,2015
"That's the news from Lake Woebegone, where all the women are strong,all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average."
I have enjoyed the radio show A Prairie Home Companion for about 25 years, almost as long as it has been on the air in its present form. Host Garrison Keillor turns 73 this year and occasionally threatens retirement but so far has been unwilling to go through with it. The May 10th show was a typical combination of dry humor and American music, including an effective parody of "The Times They Are A' Changing" that emphasized how we are changing: "my daughter doesn't dare leave me alone ..." There was an episode of Guy Noir, private eye (a tribute to film noir that I'm sure many people don't get) and "commercials" from Bebop-A-Rebop Rhubarb Pie and The Ketchup Advisory Board. Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White and Kentucky Thunder performed some country rock ("Home is Wherever You Are"), Stuart Duncan performed a bluegrass version of a Waylon Jennings song and Keb' Mo' played the blues.
The highlights of the show for me were the sketch about Dwayne and his mother, who always tells Dwayne everything is okay when it isn't, and the news from Lake Woebegone, this week about a dog that died, a cafeteria lady at the elementary school who retired, and what happened at Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, as well as the sermon at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. As always, Fred Newman did wonderfully effective sound effects.
I grew up in a small town and I am not one who thinks that Keillor condescends to the people in small towns such as Lake Woebgone; rather, it is an attempt to understand those people and what goes on there, even if one doesn't want to continue living in a town that doesn't have a public library. And there is no question that Keillor has wide-ranging taste in music, having musical guests in just about every genre, from classical to country, as well as local guests wherever in the country he takes his show.
I have enjoyed the radio show A Prairie Home Companion for about 25 years, almost as long as it has been on the air in its present form. Host Garrison Keillor turns 73 this year and occasionally threatens retirement but so far has been unwilling to go through with it. The May 10th show was a typical combination of dry humor and American music, including an effective parody of "The Times They Are A' Changing" that emphasized how we are changing: "my daughter doesn't dare leave me alone ..." There was an episode of Guy Noir, private eye (a tribute to film noir that I'm sure many people don't get) and "commercials" from Bebop-A-Rebop Rhubarb Pie and The Ketchup Advisory Board. Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White and Kentucky Thunder performed some country rock ("Home is Wherever You Are"), Stuart Duncan performed a bluegrass version of a Waylon Jennings song and Keb' Mo' played the blues.
The highlights of the show for me were the sketch about Dwayne and his mother, who always tells Dwayne everything is okay when it isn't, and the news from Lake Woebegone, this week about a dog that died, a cafeteria lady at the elementary school who retired, and what happened at Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, as well as the sermon at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. As always, Fred Newman did wonderfully effective sound effects.
I grew up in a small town and I am not one who thinks that Keillor condescends to the people in small towns such as Lake Woebgone; rather, it is an attempt to understand those people and what goes on there, even if one doesn't want to continue living in a town that doesn't have a public library. And there is no question that Keillor has wide-ranging taste in music, having musical guests in just about every genre, from classical to country, as well as local guests wherever in the country he takes his show.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Mad Men
The writing is extremely weak, the plotting haphazard and often preposterous, the characterizations shallow and often incoherent; its attitude toward the past is glib and its self-positioning in the present is unattractively smug; the direction is unimaginative.
Daniel Mendelsohn, The Mad Men Account, The New York Review of Books, Feb.24, 2011
Mad Men is an unpleasant little entry in the genre of Now We Know Better.
Mark Grief, London Review of Books, 23 October 2008
I largely agree with these comments (even if they sound like John Simon film reviews) but I still like and enjoy the show. Mendelsohn thinks that the show may appeal to those too young to have lived through it (it takes place mostly in the sixties) who are interested in what their parents lives were like. I lived through that period myself and find it quite accurate in its portrayal of the things and attitudes of that period, though I think "realism" is a fallacy when applied to any art. Certainly the show is not like a nineteenth century novel (though many of the characters are Dickensian in their resistance to change) but it is somewhat like the eighteenth century novels of Smollett and others in its episodic and comic qualities.
My take on the show is that Matthew Weiner, its creator and writer, is not trying to say that today we are superior in so many ways but rather we are very much the same: some people may smoke and drink less but attitudes toward women, gay men and lesbians, and people of color have not changed as much as we think they have: there are still many Don Drapers in the world and many women such as Peggy Olson and Joan Harris who are trying to find their way in the business world using whatever combination of sex and accomplishment they can find that works.
The show is something of a soap opera indeed, but so are the films of Vincente Minnelli and Douglas Sirk. Over a period of seven years Mad Men has consistently delighted and surprised one, as Draper's children have started to grow up and question things, just as their parents did and their parents before them. The attitudes in Mad Men are centered in the advertising world, where the desire and ability to flimflam the public continues, sometimes more sophisticated than previously, but by no means always.
Daniel Mendelsohn, The Mad Men Account, The New York Review of Books, Feb.24, 2011
Mad Men is an unpleasant little entry in the genre of Now We Know Better.
Mark Grief, London Review of Books, 23 October 2008
I largely agree with these comments (even if they sound like John Simon film reviews) but I still like and enjoy the show. Mendelsohn thinks that the show may appeal to those too young to have lived through it (it takes place mostly in the sixties) who are interested in what their parents lives were like. I lived through that period myself and find it quite accurate in its portrayal of the things and attitudes of that period, though I think "realism" is a fallacy when applied to any art. Certainly the show is not like a nineteenth century novel (though many of the characters are Dickensian in their resistance to change) but it is somewhat like the eighteenth century novels of Smollett and others in its episodic and comic qualities.
My take on the show is that Matthew Weiner, its creator and writer, is not trying to say that today we are superior in so many ways but rather we are very much the same: some people may smoke and drink less but attitudes toward women, gay men and lesbians, and people of color have not changed as much as we think they have: there are still many Don Drapers in the world and many women such as Peggy Olson and Joan Harris who are trying to find their way in the business world using whatever combination of sex and accomplishment they can find that works.
The show is something of a soap opera indeed, but so are the films of Vincente Minnelli and Douglas Sirk. Over a period of seven years Mad Men has consistently delighted and surprised one, as Draper's children have started to grow up and question things, just as their parents did and their parents before them. The attitudes in Mad Men are centered in the advertising world, where the desire and ability to flimflam the public continues, sometimes more sophisticated than previously, but by no means always.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Secrets and Lies; David Letterman
Making a child die in a picture is a rather ticklish matter; it come close to an abuse of cinematic power.
Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock (Simon and Schuster 1967)
Secrets and Lies had its season finale Sunday with an episode directed by Timothy Busfield and written by Barbie Kligman (who created the show, based on an Australian series) and Judy McCreary A series about seeking the murderer of a young child makes one a little queasy, though it is becoming more common these days (Gracepoint is another recent example). This series was helped immensely by the presence of thirtysomething veteran Timothy Busfield, who produced and directed, as well as acting in the series. I did not find the mystery of who killed the young boy particularly interesting but everyone was a suspect at one time or another and the fragility of neighborhood bonds was convincingly demonstrated. What I did find also well evoked were the authority issues among the lower-middle class and how little understanding there was between husband and wife and parents and children: spouses routinely cheated on one another and fought constantly, fueled by alcohol, and the most important thing for children is to obey their parents and other authority figures. Violence was never far away and Juliette Lewis, the intimidating lead police investigator on the murder, was everywhere. Lewis was tough and no-nonsense (even sending her own child to jail for drugs), though at the very end she literally let down her hair as a father confessed to a murder his 12-year-old daughter committed.
There's not much to say about David Letterman. After watching last night's special about his thirty-three years in late-night television it is clearer than ever that, like his idol Johnny Carson, he had little to contribute that will last or be remembered. The special spent most of its time on the same celebrity guests that visit all these shows, though he did include an occasional hero, such as someone who rescued somebody from the subway tracks. Letterman's tricks and stunts were all done before, and better, by Steve Allen, the original and best Tonight Show host (1954-57). Letterman did hire some good writers and I enjoyed Letterman up to a point when he was on at 12:30 in the 80's, but once he moved to an 11:30 spot (in 1993) he was not much different than Carson and no longer had guests such as Pee Wee Herman telling jokes.
Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock (Simon and Schuster 1967)
Secrets and Lies had its season finale Sunday with an episode directed by Timothy Busfield and written by Barbie Kligman (who created the show, based on an Australian series) and Judy McCreary A series about seeking the murderer of a young child makes one a little queasy, though it is becoming more common these days (Gracepoint is another recent example). This series was helped immensely by the presence of thirtysomething veteran Timothy Busfield, who produced and directed, as well as acting in the series. I did not find the mystery of who killed the young boy particularly interesting but everyone was a suspect at one time or another and the fragility of neighborhood bonds was convincingly demonstrated. What I did find also well evoked were the authority issues among the lower-middle class and how little understanding there was between husband and wife and parents and children: spouses routinely cheated on one another and fought constantly, fueled by alcohol, and the most important thing for children is to obey their parents and other authority figures. Violence was never far away and Juliette Lewis, the intimidating lead police investigator on the murder, was everywhere. Lewis was tough and no-nonsense (even sending her own child to jail for drugs), though at the very end she literally let down her hair as a father confessed to a murder his 12-year-old daughter committed.
There's not much to say about David Letterman. After watching last night's special about his thirty-three years in late-night television it is clearer than ever that, like his idol Johnny Carson, he had little to contribute that will last or be remembered. The special spent most of its time on the same celebrity guests that visit all these shows, though he did include an occasional hero, such as someone who rescued somebody from the subway tracks. Letterman's tricks and stunts were all done before, and better, by Steve Allen, the original and best Tonight Show host (1954-57). Letterman did hire some good writers and I enjoyed Letterman up to a point when he was on at 12:30 in the 80's, but once he moved to an 11:30 spot (in 1993) he was not much different than Carson and no longer had guests such as Pee Wee Herman telling jokes.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Radio and Me: Part II
Throughout the 70's I listened to WBAI, WNCN and WQXR and also to Jean Shepherd on WOR-AM, who did a 45-minute monologue every night until he left WOR in 1977. I had discovered Shepherd by reading his short stories in Playboy magazine, one of the very few outlets I had for good writing in the early 60's (it also had Nabokov and P.G. Wodehouse). Shepherd's modern-day rants do not hold up well today but his stories about his childhood and his days in the army are still incisive and funny stories about growing up in a small town and serving in the armed forces in the days of the draft. New York has never had a good country radio station but in the 80's and 90's I listened to Honky-Tonkin' and Tennessee Border on WKCR and Laura Cantrell's Radio Thrift Shop on WFMU (another quirky independent station), where most of the country music was classical and played by knowledgeable djs. The WKCR shows are still on the air, while Laura Cantrell has left to pursue her own country music career (all her radio shows, however, are archived at the WFMU website).
In the 80's I also discovered Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion on WNYC. I have never owned a motorcar but I loved the way Click and Clack talked about them, with intelligent good humor. Tom Magliozzi died but his brother Ray survives him and the show is continuing with re-runs. A Prairie Home Companion is Garrison Keillor's show, which he has been doing in various forms since 1974; he is now 73 years old and has talked about retiring several times. It is something of a variety show, with music (usually of the folk variety), skits and stories about Lake Wobegone, a fictional town in Minnesota, full of Norwegians. In the 90's, while listening to WBAI, I discovered Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio, where I first heard the great radio dramas that Orson Welles did before he made films, doing brilliant adaptations of books such as The Heart of Darkness using a handful of actors, a sound effects person, and Bernard Hermann's music. Over the years Schmid has played something of the role with radio shows that Henri Langlois played with films: presenting everything he can find and being quite careful about giving his own opinions about its quality. If I hear something I like by a particular writer or director on Schmid's show I will sometimes order additional shows on MP3 discs, which are relatively inexpensive. People are surprised to hear that many radio shows, most of which they have barely heard of, if at all, still exist and are available for listening.
I do listen to some other shows occasionally. I like some of what Jonathan Schwartz plays, perhaps about a third, which was the same ratio as with the late Danny Stiles. And WQXR is still often my default station, as I write this a serenade by Dvorak is playing. I will be writing more about individual stations and shows.
In the 80's I also discovered Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion on WNYC. I have never owned a motorcar but I loved the way Click and Clack talked about them, with intelligent good humor. Tom Magliozzi died but his brother Ray survives him and the show is continuing with re-runs. A Prairie Home Companion is Garrison Keillor's show, which he has been doing in various forms since 1974; he is now 73 years old and has talked about retiring several times. It is something of a variety show, with music (usually of the folk variety), skits and stories about Lake Wobegone, a fictional town in Minnesota, full of Norwegians. In the 90's, while listening to WBAI, I discovered Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio, where I first heard the great radio dramas that Orson Welles did before he made films, doing brilliant adaptations of books such as The Heart of Darkness using a handful of actors, a sound effects person, and Bernard Hermann's music. Over the years Schmid has played something of the role with radio shows that Henri Langlois played with films: presenting everything he can find and being quite careful about giving his own opinions about its quality. If I hear something I like by a particular writer or director on Schmid's show I will sometimes order additional shows on MP3 discs, which are relatively inexpensive. People are surprised to hear that many radio shows, most of which they have barely heard of, if at all, still exist and are available for listening.
I do listen to some other shows occasionally. I like some of what Jonathan Schwartz plays, perhaps about a third, which was the same ratio as with the late Danny Stiles. And WQXR is still often my default station, as I write this a serenade by Dvorak is playing. I will be writing more about individual stations and shows.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Radio and Me: a Brief Introduction Part I
We did not have a family radio in my home when I was a child: neither of my parents cared about music and were content for news from the local newspaper, The Hudson Register-Star. My parents, particularly my father, did not believe in anything that gave one pleasure, especially if it cost money and didn't make money, though he did buy a TV so my mother could watch soap operas. Radio drama was coming to an end in the 50's but I still wanted to listen to it --especially the remaining Westerns -- and my brother and I were both baseball fans and wanted to listen to the games on the radio. So we both were able to use birthday money from grandparents to buy inexpensive crystal radio sets (the power comes from the radio waves themselves), put them together (one can still do this) and start listening to the radio, each in the privacy of our own room; we particularly liked the AM baseball broadcasts at night, as the signals bounced to us often from far away and which we listened to with cheap earphones under the covers. Red Barber and Mel Allen were the announcers for the Yankees and Vin Scully, who started in 1950 and is still going strong, was the announcer for the Dodgers.
When I was twelve I had a paper route and was able to use some of the money to buy a portable radio that could also be plugged in and that's when I started to listen to popular music, especially New York station WABC, which had quite a strong signal. I was fairly indiscriminate in my taste but was particularly fond of The Beach Boys. In 1962 I went away to school in New Hampshire and listened mostly to Boston Top 40 stations, savoring the British bands of that period; I was especially fond of The Rolling Stones because adults seemed to dislike them almost as much as they disliked Elvis Presley when I was younger.
When I came to New York to attend college in 1965 I still listened mostly to pop music, until I took Music Humanities, a required course at Columbia. That opened my eyes and ears to classical music and opera, of which there was a great deal in N.Y. While growing up in Hudson, N.Y. I never heard of classical music and never had attended a concert. I started going to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center fairly regularly, as well as the lower-priced and exciting NYC Opera. I also started going to ballet and dance performances, which also helped me appreciate a wider range of music: seeing the wonderfully musical ballets of Balanchine helped me to appreciate the intricacies of composers as different as Tchaikovsky and Bach. And I also started listening frequently to classical radio stations WQXR and WNCN (especially the late night show of Bill Watson, who would play Mozart's Requiem twice in a row).
I bought a lot of records and listened to a lot of radio in the 60's and during that period many things happened --the good, the bad, and the ugly -- but among the best were discovering WBAI and discovering country music. In 1966 I first heard of Bob Fass when he did a "fly-in", something of a "be-in" except that it took place at Kennedy airport. The press mentioned his show, Radio Unnameable, on WBAI at midnight, Monday to Friday, and I started to listen to its marvelous combination of free-form music and comedy, a very individual style that also influenced WBAI personalities Steve Post (Saturday and Sunday) and Larry Josephson (weekday mornings). Unexpected and interesting things were always happening on Radio Unnameable; for instance, it was where Arlo Guthrie performed "Alice's Restaurant" for the first time. And it was around this time that The Byrds, a favorite rock group of mine, did their album "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and got me interested for the first time in country music. As popular music had become solipsistic and formulaic I started to discover the populist authenticity of country music. ...to be continued
When I was twelve I had a paper route and was able to use some of the money to buy a portable radio that could also be plugged in and that's when I started to listen to popular music, especially New York station WABC, which had quite a strong signal. I was fairly indiscriminate in my taste but was particularly fond of The Beach Boys. In 1962 I went away to school in New Hampshire and listened mostly to Boston Top 40 stations, savoring the British bands of that period; I was especially fond of The Rolling Stones because adults seemed to dislike them almost as much as they disliked Elvis Presley when I was younger.
When I came to New York to attend college in 1965 I still listened mostly to pop music, until I took Music Humanities, a required course at Columbia. That opened my eyes and ears to classical music and opera, of which there was a great deal in N.Y. While growing up in Hudson, N.Y. I never heard of classical music and never had attended a concert. I started going to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center fairly regularly, as well as the lower-priced and exciting NYC Opera. I also started going to ballet and dance performances, which also helped me appreciate a wider range of music: seeing the wonderfully musical ballets of Balanchine helped me to appreciate the intricacies of composers as different as Tchaikovsky and Bach. And I also started listening frequently to classical radio stations WQXR and WNCN (especially the late night show of Bill Watson, who would play Mozart's Requiem twice in a row).
I bought a lot of records and listened to a lot of radio in the 60's and during that period many things happened --the good, the bad, and the ugly -- but among the best were discovering WBAI and discovering country music. In 1966 I first heard of Bob Fass when he did a "fly-in", something of a "be-in" except that it took place at Kennedy airport. The press mentioned his show, Radio Unnameable, on WBAI at midnight, Monday to Friday, and I started to listen to its marvelous combination of free-form music and comedy, a very individual style that also influenced WBAI personalities Steve Post (Saturday and Sunday) and Larry Josephson (weekday mornings). Unexpected and interesting things were always happening on Radio Unnameable; for instance, it was where Arlo Guthrie performed "Alice's Restaurant" for the first time. And it was around this time that The Byrds, a favorite rock group of mine, did their album "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and got me interested for the first time in country music. As popular music had become solipsistic and formulaic I started to discover the populist authenticity of country music. ...to be continued
Thursday, April 23, 2015
TV and Me: an Introduction
My family got their first TV in the early fifties, when we lived in a farmhouse in Kinderhook, N.Y. The only show I remember watching early on was Howdy Doody, which was on throughout the 50's. Generally I did not watch much TV when I was a kid because of the lack of good reception, the primitive quality of many of the shows (particularly as opposed to the radio shows I liked, just as they were about to die out), and the lack of privacy (the TV being in the living room). When I was in third grade we moved to Hudson, N.Y. where we received stations from Albany, about forty miles away. Reception was poor, even if one had a good aerial on the roof, which we did not, and there was always a problem with a rolling picture, sometimes not easily corrected with "horizontal hold." I was content with reading what books I could find (in a town without a library or a bookstore) and listening to the radio. I was a passionate listener to baseball games (as I still am) but did sometimes watch baseball's The Game of the Week on TV Saturday afternoons, with its excellent use of two cameras to show the entire field.
When I went away to school in 1962, when I was 15, I almost never watched TV, since it seemed that our dormitory TV was tuned usually to professional wrestling or My Favorite Martian (to this day I cannot stand the canned laughter of situation comedies) and the same thing was true in the TV room at my dorm when I started at Columbia in 1965. So I did not watch TV again until the mid-seventies, when I finally bought a TV so I could watch Simon Raven's excellent adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Pallisers; I had loved the novels and I thought the TV version was beautifully written and cast. The only other show I watched during this period was Norman Lear's brilliant Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. I would also watch an occasional movie on TV, though I hated the commercials and timed the movie content with a stopwatch (Leonard Maltin had published his first book that had the running times of classical movies) to make sure the movies were not cut; if a movie of 120 minutes was shown in a two-hour time slot I simply would not watch it. But mostly I saw movies at MoMA and at repertory houses such as The New Yorker (one can read about this on my other blog http://balletbaseballmoviesbooks.blogspot.com )
In 1994 I married and moved to Brooklyn with my wonderful wife Susan and there we got cable TV, mainly to watch AMC, at that time (and, alas, no longer) similar to the current Turner Classic Movies, with uninterrupted and uncut classical films. But it was also at that point that I began to explore some of the more creative talents in TV that I had been hearing about, particularly Steven Bochco (L.A. Law, NYPD Blue) and David E. Kelley (The Practice, Ally McBeal). But until our first child was born, in 1998, we mostly went to the movies.
After our son was born we watched a bit more TV because we were, by necessity, at home more often. The one show Susan and I both liked most recently was Jason Katim's Parenthood, which just completed an excellent six-year run and had its moving series finale this year. Most of the best shows these days are on cable TV; they are not tied down to a rigid 22-episode schedule and are at slightly less risk of becoming formulaic. The two network shows I watch currently are Secrets and Lies and The Good Wife. Secrets and Lies is less interesting for its murder mystery than for its insights into the behavior of the lower-middle class; it was created by Barbie Kligman and is helped immensely by the acting, directing and producing of Thirtysomething veteran Timothy Busfield. The Good Wife is a complex legal and personal drama created by Michele and Robert King.
Vincent Gilligan is one of the most creative people in television these days. He created Breaking Bad and the current Better Call Saul (something of a spinoff but rather different in mood) for AMC. I will be discussing these shows and others that I like, such as Mad Men, The Americans, Homeland, et al., as well as some I don't like.
When I went away to school in 1962, when I was 15, I almost never watched TV, since it seemed that our dormitory TV was tuned usually to professional wrestling or My Favorite Martian (to this day I cannot stand the canned laughter of situation comedies) and the same thing was true in the TV room at my dorm when I started at Columbia in 1965. So I did not watch TV again until the mid-seventies, when I finally bought a TV so I could watch Simon Raven's excellent adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Pallisers; I had loved the novels and I thought the TV version was beautifully written and cast. The only other show I watched during this period was Norman Lear's brilliant Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. I would also watch an occasional movie on TV, though I hated the commercials and timed the movie content with a stopwatch (Leonard Maltin had published his first book that had the running times of classical movies) to make sure the movies were not cut; if a movie of 120 minutes was shown in a two-hour time slot I simply would not watch it. But mostly I saw movies at MoMA and at repertory houses such as The New Yorker (one can read about this on my other blog http://balletbaseballmoviesbooks.blogspot.com )
In 1994 I married and moved to Brooklyn with my wonderful wife Susan and there we got cable TV, mainly to watch AMC, at that time (and, alas, no longer) similar to the current Turner Classic Movies, with uninterrupted and uncut classical films. But it was also at that point that I began to explore some of the more creative talents in TV that I had been hearing about, particularly Steven Bochco (L.A. Law, NYPD Blue) and David E. Kelley (The Practice, Ally McBeal). But until our first child was born, in 1998, we mostly went to the movies.
After our son was born we watched a bit more TV because we were, by necessity, at home more often. The one show Susan and I both liked most recently was Jason Katim's Parenthood, which just completed an excellent six-year run and had its moving series finale this year. Most of the best shows these days are on cable TV; they are not tied down to a rigid 22-episode schedule and are at slightly less risk of becoming formulaic. The two network shows I watch currently are Secrets and Lies and The Good Wife. Secrets and Lies is less interesting for its murder mystery than for its insights into the behavior of the lower-middle class; it was created by Barbie Kligman and is helped immensely by the acting, directing and producing of Thirtysomething veteran Timothy Busfield. The Good Wife is a complex legal and personal drama created by Michele and Robert King.
Vincent Gilligan is one of the most creative people in television these days. He created Breaking Bad and the current Better Call Saul (something of a spinoff but rather different in mood) for AMC. I will be discussing these shows and others that I like, such as Mad Men, The Americans, Homeland, et al., as well as some I don't like.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Radio and TV
Last year, according to FX's data, three-hundred and fifty-two scripted first-run prime-time and late-night programs aired on broadcast, cable and streaming networks in the U.S., not including PBS.
Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker, April 13, 2015.
I'm creating this blog because little attention is given to most of these shows, whether or not they deserve it, and the people who create and produce them are seldom given sufficient credit. Jason Katims, who is largely responsible for Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, two recent beautiful and complex shows, is still mostly unknown to most of the shows' viewers. I intend to write about shows I like, mostly, and bring attention to their writers, producers and directors.
Radio gets even less attention than TV, not surprising since there is less creativity currently on radio. But I plan to bring attention to what creativity there is, as well as what there has been. One of my favorite radio shows, which has been on WBAI (99.5, 7-9 P.M. Sundays) for some time is Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio, which broadcasts everything from the Mercury Theatre of Orson Welles to a recent impressive tribute to the recently-deceased and mostly-forgotten Stan Freberg, who did one of the last network radio shows, in 1957. But I will also write about current radio, the best of which is on non-profit stations WKCR, WNYC, WFMU, WQXR, as well as WBAI. And I will also write about the current state of talk and musical radio (not good, what little I know about it at this point).
So stayed tuned and please let me know if you have any radio or TV shows that deserve more attention.
Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker, April 13, 2015.
I'm creating this blog because little attention is given to most of these shows, whether or not they deserve it, and the people who create and produce them are seldom given sufficient credit. Jason Katims, who is largely responsible for Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, two recent beautiful and complex shows, is still mostly unknown to most of the shows' viewers. I intend to write about shows I like, mostly, and bring attention to their writers, producers and directors.
Radio gets even less attention than TV, not surprising since there is less creativity currently on radio. But I plan to bring attention to what creativity there is, as well as what there has been. One of my favorite radio shows, which has been on WBAI (99.5, 7-9 P.M. Sundays) for some time is Max Schmid's The Golden Age of Radio, which broadcasts everything from the Mercury Theatre of Orson Welles to a recent impressive tribute to the recently-deceased and mostly-forgotten Stan Freberg, who did one of the last network radio shows, in 1957. But I will also write about current radio, the best of which is on non-profit stations WKCR, WNYC, WFMU, WQXR, as well as WBAI. And I will also write about the current state of talk and musical radio (not good, what little I know about it at this point).
So stayed tuned and please let me know if you have any radio or TV shows that deserve more attention.
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