June 2011 - Page 2 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Color TV’s 60th anniversary

The pace quickened when ABC and CBS went to full color for its 1966 fall schedule.

Looking for something else, I discovered that TODAY is the 60th anniversary of the first U.S. color telecast. “On June 25, 1951, with 12 million TV sets in existence, of which only two dozen could receive CBS color, CBS made history by presenting an hour-long color TV program hosted by Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey with 16 stars that performed song, dance and comedy routines.”

As this article notes, “Earlier attempts to create marketable color broadcasts had been hampered by the FCC’s insistence that any color signal be readable by existing black and white sets as well. Even though the CBS color transmission system was not compatible with most existing televisions, the FCC approved it as the U.S. standard in 1950…

“Unfortunately, the color television sets that were required to view the programs did not sell very well. In 1953, the FCC reversed their decision to use CBS’s design as the national standard in favor of an RCA design that was compatible with existing TV sets.”

Like most software/hardware problems of today, there weren’t more color TVs sold in part because there wasn’t enough color programming and vice versa. But when NBC took the lead in color broadcasting, due in no small part to its relationship with RCA, which could build color TVs, color became inevitable, slowly at first.

Jan 1964 – 1,620,000
Jan 1965 – 2,860,000
Jan 1966 – 5,220,000
Jan 1967 – 9,510,000
Jan 1968 -14,130,000 Roughly 25% of US households
Jan 1969 -19,200,000 Roughly 33%
Apr 1969 -20,560,000
Oct 1970 -26,200,000
Jul 1971 -29,700,000 Roughly 48%

The pace quickened when ABC and CBS went to full color for its 1966 fall schedule. I remember well the teases:

ABC in color,
The Avengers,
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,

CBS in color,
CBS logo.

Of course, early on, I saw those “color” logos in black and white.

Sausage making done right – Gay marriage will be legal in NYS

“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” – apparently misattributed to Otto von Bismarck. But every once in a while, you fry some sausage in the pan and it tastes great.

I was home watching YNN, the Time Warner cable news station, during an extended session of Capital Tonight Friday evening, when Steve Saland, a Republican state senator from the Mid-Hudson, started speaking about an amendment to the marriage equality bill. There’s an overlay on the screen indicating that Saland had not yet indicated which way he would vote on the bill.

But minutes later, it was obvious that he would be the 32nd vote necessary for the passage of the legislation. It was, among other things, a great television moment.

And after he spoke, I set the DVR and went to bed, satisfied that there would be a rainbow over New York; the state legislature would pass marriage equality, and the governor would sure sign it.

Then I woke up very early in the morning, and it was so. Yay.
***
Arthur’s observation.

Roger Answers Your Questions, Eclipse and Uthaclena

My long-standing rejection of polygamy has largely based on the sense that it is much more likely to have aspects of exploitation that is even greater than a relationship between two people.

Eclipse, who I have visited through ABC Wednesday, asks:
Regarding the “music playing in the head” I’ve just thought….Have you ever try to write poetry?
Would you?

Before I answer that question, I’ll answer a question you didn’t ask.

When I was roughly 15 to about 23, I had made some effort to try to write songs. I should rephrase; I wasn’t TRYING so much as tunes and lyrics came to me. I kept them in a notebook, which, unfortunately, I’ve since lost.

But as I think back on them, most of them weren’t very good. Oh, a couple of them might have potential in the right setting. And one, in particular, isn’t bad at all but expresses values I no longer have: David Lee Roth should have recorded it. But most of them, I recognize, are cribbed in the way George Harrison unintentionally purloined He’s So Fine for My Sweet Lord. Because I literally grew up with music, I feel I can clear-mindedly evaluate them.

I had a girlfriend in the late 1970s who was a published poet. I would attend some of the poetry workshops she helped organize. Naturally, I decided to try to write some poems myself. But I just never got a feel for it, what was good, what was schlock, what was “honest”. When I go to the poetry sites, such as yours, I can only comment on what resonates with me. But writing poetry again would be like blogging in Ukrainian; it’s too foreign. So commenting on poetry tends to fall into the “I don’t know if it’s good, but I know when it resonates” philosophy. And even when it does, I don’t always have the language to comment. “Good” or “nice” seems lackluster.
***
Uthaclena, who I’ve only known for 39 3/4 years, so I can say, “Dude, it’s been seven months since you blogged; WRITE something!”, poses this:
Anything? Okay, how about a sociopolitical-philosophical question. You’ve supported marriage equality (“Gay Marriage”), how do you feel about alternative marital arrangements like polygamy, polyandry, or group marriages? Should they be considered for legal legitimacy? The former, of course, was tried by the Mormons and is by no means unusual or “untraditional” in many international cultures. Just curious.

My long-standing rejection of polygamy has largely based on the sense that it is much more likely to have aspects of exploitation that are even greater than in a relationship between two people. The few modern examples in this country seem to bear that out. I assume, but frankly don’t know, that it’s true re polyandry as well.

This means, by logical extension, that I should favor group marriage since it would seem to be more equitable. That I don’t probably has something to do with my basic conventionality. Or maybe it’s because I think it’s just too messy societally when dealing with children, property, and the like. Guess I’m just an old-fashioned guy.
***
I’m still taking your questions here, so have at it.

A Perfunctory Defense of ‘Glee’

To me, the interesting thing about Kurt, the “flamboyant gay character” is that, in some ways, his character is about the most real person on the show.

My online buddy Jaquandor wrote an evisceration of the TV show Glee recently:

I hate Glee. Hate it. Absolutely hate it. But I’ll say this: Glee sure is a fun show to hate. It’s total crap.

Virtually everything he says is absolutely, positively true. And (most of) it doesn’t matter to me one whit.

What do I hate about it? Well, the characters, for one. This is one of those shows that makes me constantly say to myself, “Nobody would ever act this way in real life!”

Well, no, but see, I see Glee as a musical. Musical theater, or movie musical, operetta, or even a Bollywood video. “Real life” isn’t the point.

In one episode, the Jane Lynch character played a sex tape or something like that made by the glee-club director over the school’s PA system. I don’t know if that was supposed to be funny, but someone does that in real life, and they’re almost certainly suspended from their job by the end of the day. Ugh.

Well, yes, but the Sue Sylvester character often gets her way, at least in the short run, by her bullying and intimidation.
That said, the schtick IS getting tired. Her character worked for me in Season 1, so the writers ramped it up, with the supervillains’ clique that included Will’s ex-wife?

I also hate how the show’s musical numbers are all the same: a person starts singing while everyone else sits around, staring at them in rapt amazement.

That is true, and that’s the show’s conceit. It’s the same kind of thing one saw in this scene in the movie 500 Days of Summer.

In any case, I’m happy that it isn’t always Finn and Rachel, with an occasional solo by Mercedes, but they’ve opened up to the rest of the cast.

I hate how the show constantly implies that only singers are musicians of any worth — no lip service at all is paid to the incredibly talented instrumentalists who are never seen rehearsing or practicing, and yet who provide perfect — and anonymous — accompaniments each week.

At least they’re on screen. Usually, movie musicians are invisible, some orchestra dubbed in later; the opening street scene in West Side Story immediately comes to mind. I’m happy these instrumentalists get any screen time at all. And given the fact that the school budget is often in peril, it’s amazing how many instrumentalists there can be, when necessary.

I hate the show’s reliance on cliche, from the flamboyant gay character to the way the season finale, set in New York City, opened with glittering shots of Times Square while the opening bars of Rhapsody in Blue played.

To me, the interesting thing about Kurt, the “flamboyant gay character” is that, in some ways, his character is about the most real person on the show, from dealing with school bullying to his father’s struggle with accepting his son’s sexual orientation. Last season, I said that Mike O’Malley deserved an Emmy for his portrayal as Kurt’s dad Burt.

I mentioned that there were a couple of gay college teens speaking at our Adult Education hour at church on June 5. They seemed to feel, and I tend to agree, that, in the main, Kurt’s portrayal by Chris Colfer, who, at 21, is closer to high school age than most of the cast, has been a net positive for other gay and questioning teens.

Ah, nuts. Haven’t seen the last episode this season yet. Good thing I LOVE Gershwin.

Glee is ghastly garbage!

It’s inconsistent, for sure.

(Why do we watch it? The Kid likes it.)

And I watch it, in part, because it is currently the ONLY show the Wife and I watch together. (We’ve recorded 30 Rock, but we haven’t seen an episode all season.) And that counts for something.

Oh, and my wife has several albums from Glee which she plays in the car. So my daughter knows Bust Your Windows and You Can’t Always Get What You Want from the Gleekified versions, not the originals, which I suppose is a problem in the short term.

Still, Glee has to be better than any number of reality shows that, just from their commercials, rot my brain.

A Solstice Sensation: ASK ROGER ANYTHING

I know this is a tremendous responsibility, but you CAN do it. I have faith.

Because I have no idea what I should be writing about that I’m not writing about – my psychic powers have been gravely diminished by global warming – periodically, I request that you fine folks Ask Roger Anything. That’s A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. And I have to answer. Honestly.

Now, I might try to obfuscate, but as anyone who lived through Watergate knows, “It isn’t the crime that’ll get you, it’s the coverup.” Now what that has to do with the price of caviar, I do not know. Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe the fatigue has made me goofy – or there really IS music playing in my head – and only your questions can put me back on the straight and/or narrow.

I know this is a tremendous responsibility, but you CAN do it. I have faith.