All-Time Favorite Television

My 21st C TV viewing is lacking

My old blogger buddy, J. Eric Smith ,  made note of the New York Times essay The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century. But for reasons, he ended up compiling his All-Time Favorite Television.

I’ve been pretty clear that I haven’t seen nearly enough 21st-century telly. Several shows I’ve seen exactly one episode of (The Wire, Mad Men, Watchmen, Ted Lasso) , but never got back to them.  I haven’t seen others (Breaking Bad, Succession, and tons of others) at all. I had no interest in watching some (Game of Thrones especially).

Initially, I didn’t want to sign up for various streaming services. But even though my cable company is adding more platforms at no extra charge, I’m just not in the habit.

As for the rewatchability of some shows, I’m largely guessing for most, since I haven’t seen some of these in decades.

But what the heck. I’ll attempt the JES thing. From 27 to 1, because that’s what I thought of.

Hill Street Blues – I loved the show at the time. I’ve read that it doesn’t hold up by a few sources, but it was the root of a lot of what followed in crime dramas

The Office (US) – often cringeworthy, especially after Michael Scott departed. But when my wife and I were away this summer, we ended up viewing several episodes

Taxi – I liked Reverend Jim; Latka, not so much. But seeing the movie Man in the Moon helped put Andy Kaufman in context.

Two Sides of Manhattan

East Side, West Side – an early 1960s show with George C. Scott and Cicely Tyson

Arrested Development – my watching was spotty, but I liked it when I saw it

The Good Place – I liked the pseudo-theological motif

30 Rock – the quasi-documentary

The Associates – a short-lived 1980s comedy

Perry Mason – late-night; if I’m channel surfing, I’ll end up watching it. It was one of the shows that made me want to be a lawyer

The Defenders – 1960s show with E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed; another lawyer show

Rocky and Bullwinkle – my favorite cartoon show

Cagney and Lacey – I literally had dreams about the show

St. Elsewhere -so what if it’s a kid fever dream?

Once and Again – a couple, he divorced, she almost, and family complications

Brothers and Sisters – adult children of a matriarch played by Sally Field

The Good Wife – I liked how it evolved from an Eliot Spitzer “stand by your man” motif

Star Trek: The Next Generation – the one I connected with, more than the original series 

The Johnny Cash Show – he had such a variety of pop and country singers on his show c. 1970; it was when I first realized how cool he was

Pushing Daisies – a two-season series about life and death and life

My Name Is Earl – a show about redemption which ended too early

Law and Order: Criminal Intent – two very quirky male leads in Vincent D’Onofrio and Jeff Goldblum

Barney Miller – I liked most of the cops, but the criminals and victims of crime made it for me.

Freaks and Geeks – I could relate

My So-Called Life – ditto

The Bold Ones: The Senator – this was a rotating series on NBC that lasted one season, then won a bunch of Emmys

The Twilight Zone – I own the series on DVD

The Dick Van Dyke Show – I watched our DVDs with my daughter, so I know it holds up

Sunday Stealing Breaks a Promise

GOAL!

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Ignore the above paragraph. This week we’re going rogue with questions inspired by a website devoted to giving penpals topics for their letters.

Sunday Stealing Breaks a Promise: Getting to Know You 

1) Describe yourself in three words.
Curious, observant, musical. 
2) What’s your favorite dish at your favorite restaurant? 
Do I have a favorite dish? I like lamb, and the lamb, in various forms at Kismet on Madison Avenue in Albany, a whole block away, was quite good the last time my wife were there. 
3) Did you set goals for 2026? If yes, how are you proceeding toward them?
For one specific goal, which got nowhere near started, I’ve been recalibrating.  Rethinking the goal, I can avoid trying for the perfect and accept the “good enough.” 
Beyond that, I’ve spent a substantial amount of time on a project which wasn’t even on my list. Somehow, a line from the John Lennon song Beautiful Boy is applicable here.
Just Say No
4) What’s something you have learned the hard way?
Don’t make goals. I have to relearn it frequently. 
Oh, and I have a finite reservoir of energy for things I don’t really want to do; saying no is almost always an option. 
5) If you could skip one item on today’s to-do list, what would it be?
Any of the cleaning tasks. I’d rather read the paper, write a blog post, even watch TV. But there is a piece of information I need that’s SOMEWHERE in this room. WAIT a minute – I came up with a workaround; it involved making three phone calls, but 1) it’s better than cleaning (which might not have unearthed the note, and 2) it worked. Sometimes, the brain cogitating incessantly is a useful thing. 

Nine albums

11 songs or 14?


I decided to do the Nine Albums thing that I saw on Facebook. You can do this for yourself by going to my9albums.com.

In fact, I could have picked 99 albums, but that wasn’t the assignment. I considered Blue by Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin’s first album, Who’s Next, Carole King’s Tapestry, Sweet Baby James by JT, The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland, and Aja by Steely Dan.

I know most people just show the covers without comment. Maybe I’m just contrarian, but if I’m going to put thought into the selections, I need to explain myself.

Revolver: It had to be a chronologically middle Beatles album. Revolver won because the American album was good with 11 songs, but the UK version with those three Lennon songs is great. (They had been excised to prop up the US-only Yesterday and Today.) I was particularly fond of the last two songs back to back, played as loudly as possible when my parents weren’t home: Got To Get You Into My Life and Tomorrow Never Knows; For No One.

The Band: I heard the second album first. In my high school yearbook, alongside our high school band, was a pic of the four Canadians and the American because one of my best friends was the editor of said document. Up On Cripple Creek; Look Out Cleveland; King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Saw Live!

Speaking In Tongues. I bought the Talking Heads’ album shortly before I saw the band at SPAC during the transformative Stop Making Sense tour. (I’ve since seen Lynn Mabry, who was backup singer for TH, sing backup for Sheila E,. along side of my niece Rebecca Jade.)  I may have had one other TH album, but I filled in the gaps after that. I also have a few David Byrne solo albums. Burning Down The House; Making Flippy Floppy; This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody), which recalls a specific trip to Cooperstown in the 1990s.

Talking Book: It’s not my favorite Stevie album, but it is the beginning of an incredible run that culminated in Songs In The Key of Life. This is when Berry Gordy, out of necessity, started loosening the reins on some of Motown’s top artists. You Are the Sunshine of My Life; Superstition;  I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)

Still Crazy After All These Years: This Paul Simon collection became my college relationship breakup album, not just when it came out in 1975, but afterward. The title song represents 1981, when the ex and I saw Joni Mitchell in Philadelphia, a much better experience than seeing Joni in 1974 at SPAC, which was the beginning of our breakup. My Little Town is me retreating to Binghamton after that. I Do It for Our Love, specifically “the orange bled the blue,” is our first dreadful apartment. And it goes on from there.

Formerly of Genesis

(Melt): Peter Gabriel’s third album might be my island album. I got it in German for Christmas in 1980, in a cleverly packaged group of six albums that felt like an empty box.  I Don’t Remember – oh, I remember a lot. Biko, which was the first time I really knew who the murdered South African activist was.  Games Without Frontiers does NOT have the lyrics, “She’s so funky, yeah.”

Court and Spark. This Joni Mitchell album came out in 1974, which I’ve already alluded to. After that, I bought a lot of earlier Joni, including my favorite, Blue. Help Me reminds me of a 1975 rebound relationship that did not last. The Same Situation; Raised on Robbery.

We Shall Overcome: this live Pete Seeger album, recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1963, was actually my father’s album, but I played it a lot. It helped inform my social activism.  I’ve seen Pete perform over two dozen times and met him once. Much later, I bought the CD, and I discovered the LP was about half the length. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize; Who Killed Norma Jean?; Tshotsholosa

Pet Sounds: I got this Beach Boys album from the Capitol Record Club because I didn’t opt out. I knew the band, of course, from the radio, songs full of references to surfing and cars; I didn’t relate. But I GOT this album. Interestingly, in the 1970s, I bought a retrospective Beach Boys album and decided I liked it. Now I have a 5-CD set of the band that I gave to a friend of mine, Donna, but got back after she died. Wouldn’t It Be Nice; Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder); God Only Knows.

Creature of habit

bandwidth

I’m a creature of habit – most of us are – but there are situations that remind me how much that is the case.

Since I’m unemployed – I mean retired – it is clear that I need a few days per week when I have no obligations. Though when I say that I have “nothing to do,” it is a bit of a fiction. There are always dishes to wash, bills to pay, and blog posts to write. (Do NOT look at the floor next to my side of the bed.)

In order to get reimbursed for some medical payments, I have to submit forms electronically; I haven’t done that in weeks, so it’s fortunate that I’m independently wealthy (he joked). I need to get grocery staples when we run out. Once a week, I have a friend I need to visit.

Also, I have to work on finding speakers for the FFAPL and host the ones I’ve secured. Oh, and I’m supposed to give a book review in less than two weeks; I should start reading the book, I reckon.

Of course, I have church and choir, which brings joy. Do not underestimate joy.

My wife, daughter and I play the NYT Connections together every evening because it’s a collective family thing; also, our brains work very differently. Even when my wife and daughter were in NYC for a couple nights, we played via telephone. I’m still playing Wordle, but having broken my streak for a SECOND time this calendar year, I keep playing because of the Wordle World community and a couple other folks. 

I used to deliver a newspaper

When my newspapers, probably a week’s  worth, traveled in my suitcase, a friend of mine said, “Well, you don’t really need to worry about those.” The thing is: I LIKE to read the newspaper, even the ones that are a couple of weeks old, though I get annoyed when that happens.

People note that I can read the stories online, which is true except I LIKE reading the paper. It relaxes me – well, maybe not the CONTENT but the physical experience of sitting in a comfortable chair and perusing the pages. Looking at stories online I find mentally tiring.

I check out the obituaries. More than once, I have found a piece about someone I knew but was unaware that they had died.

I do visit a handful of websites, the usual suspects: AmeriNZ, Forgotten Stars, News From ME, Coverville, whatever the heck Greg Burgas is posting, and some of the folks that Chuck Miller highlights on his Saturday blogroll. It is, in a very real sense, part of my community. 

To add or not to add

What I’ve increasingly realized is that I must be judicious in adding things to the calendar. Going to lunch with a friend? That’s almost always a yes.

I’d like to work more on political campaigns – the local Indivisible group has plenty of suggestions, but I’ve done little in this arena since I attended a No Kings rally several months ago.

Some miniscule – okay, not so small – part of me wants me to do more in a variety of areas. A larger part gets into a term my sister was using a lot the last time I spoke with her: bandwidth. She doesn’t have the bandwidth to do A, B, C, AND D.  I’m in a similar boat. 

I’ve pretty much sworn off anything that involves meetings. Well, except for one. My tolerance for them is through the floor.

All of this to say that I am continuing to muddle through, sort of like the 4-1 Buffalo Bills; QB Josh Allen won only first overtime game in the NFL? Sort of like that.  

Sept rambling – Bust Unions

Whispers from the Great Beyond, featuring Rebecca Jade

Amazon Is Deploying AI to Spy on Its Workers and Bust Unions Before They Form

The Secret Service: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

The Nobel Peace Prize announcement is that this year’s award went to Navi Pillay, a person of “exceptional courage” who has led accountability efforts against apartheid, prosecuted war crimes, and upheld international law for decades.  The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored Pillay, who early in her career served as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, her native country.

Being Heard Is Not Enough. As the Cornell 7 case reminds us, institutional accountability is a must

A Photo of Mussolini’s Corpse Led Page 1. How It Got There Is a Tale.

When Your Charity Dollars Go Overseas, Can You Follow the Money?

Where to Take Your Unwanted Prescription Meds – The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has an online tool that lets you find the closest kiosk by entering your ZIP code.

Eva Marie Saint, from the movie North by Northwest, and an Oscar winner for On the Waterfront, is dead at 102

Mike Ditka has died. He and the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986, and after coaching, he became one of the sport’s most visible and enduring talking heads. He was 86.

70 Up and saying goodbye to the greatest documentary series of all time

Toadstools and Toxins, what’s in those “magic mushroom” gummies?

UGH

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the regime’s request to resume third-country deportations, issuing an unsigned stay of a lower-court injunction. The Court added the case to its docket and scheduled oral arguments for December.

FOTUS wrote that the White House sees anyone who says “artificial intelligence” instead of “super intelligence” as “THE ENEMY”.

FOTUS’s decision to hold an international summit at his private golf club, an idea he rejected in his first term, shows how much he has shattered norms.

He personally told an aide to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him

The regime’s allies have sought to prove a “grand conspiracy” through a sprawling Justice Department inquiry. It has buckled under staffing shake-ups, internal disputes, and trouble finding evidence.

A scorecard from MAHA activists suggests the regime has broken most of its promises to the movement on food, agriculture, and environmental health.

GOP senator’s gotcha question blows up in his face

MUSIC

This Land Is Your Land/Power to the People – Tom Morello leads an all-star finale featuring Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Dave Grohl, Dave Matthews, Stephen Stills, and more, performing live at the Power to the People Festival 2026! The whole 10-hour concert✊

My Minnesota Home – Gail Sparlin. I heard her sing this at the Reader’s Theater event in Albany, NY, on October 5, benefiting the Wizard’s Wardrobe tutorial program.

Peter Sprague Plays Whispers from the Great Beyond, featuring Rebecca Jade

Autumnal Sketch by Sergei Prokofiev

The main theme from the score to Dangerous Beauty by George Fenton

Kansas City – The New Basement Tapes

Dolly Suite by Gabriel Fauré

Teardrops – Womack & Womack

On the radio, I heard Leyenda by Albeniz. IDK who was playing, but here’s Andres Segovia. It reminded me of Spanish Caravan – The Doors

Coverville 1596: Album Anniversaries for XTC, ELO and Simon & Garfunkel

The Fall of the Leaf by Gerald Finzi

Surreptitious – Romy

Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels) – Jim Croce 

Peter Sprague Plays The Kiss featuring Allison Adams Tucker

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists (Series Four) #11: Elton John

NYT: My Favorite Phone Songs

Remembering when there were ‘Stax’ of soul musicians in Memphis

What Makes This 50’s Fender Precision Bass So Rare! The insane story of how Joe Bonamassa helped solve Rick Beato’s 50-year-old family mystery.