Concept totally stolen from my good buddy Fred Hembeck.
Joe DiMaggio and yours truly–think you can figure out the connection?
I suppose if you look at a post of mine from last year, it might help.
ROG
Roger QUESTION
Category: Fred Hembeck
Hembeck is 56
It’s no great secret that my good friend Fred Hembeck was instrumental in getting me to start blogging. I had contributed a couple things to him that he used in his blog, and that inspired me to do my own.
In recent months, though, Fred’s blogging output had begun to slacken appreciably. Part of that was due to the work involved in preparing for his still-available book, but also, he’d seemed to have just lost a little of his blogging mojo.
Until…
Fred discovered a revolutionary new technology that has re-energized his blog in the last month and a half. It’s called:
YouTube
As Fred himself said, “Okay, I’ll admit it–regarding YouTube, I’m way, WAAAAY behind the curve. But only because I knew what would happen if I allowed myself to do more than peak into the occasional video embedded over on another blog.
I knew I’d become obsessed.”
And obsessed he has become. But an obsessed Fred Hembeck is a Fred Hembeck who’s exciting to read. If you haven’t been been by Fred Sez, or haven’t been there lately, check it out.
WARNING: You may spend more time there watching his YouTube links than you planned.
Oh, and happy birthday, effendi – you’re older than I am for five weeks!
ROG
TV Age
I have loved television for decades. I’m unapologetic about it. I don’t watch “only PBS and the History Channel” either. I like commercial, sometimes trashy TV. I can still tell you the nights certain programs were on forty years ago. I have books about the Dick van Dyke Show, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Colombo, Taxi, and JEOPARDY!, plus several general texts.
But a couple things have happened in the last couple years that seems to have lessened the allure of the tube. One was the writers’ strike. Ironically, I supported the writers on their position regarding the strike. But my TV mojo just got lost, just as it did for baseball after the 1994 strike, when it took about three years to get it back.
The other event took place in early December. I had recorded a number of television shows on my DVR that I had not had a chance to see. I was two weeks behind on the dramas (all on ABC). The comedies (all on NBC) were even further back; I had seen no 30 Rock, and the The Office and Earl were likewise five or six weeks behind, at least. The were a couple news programs, about three weeks of JEOPARDY! plus shows for Lydia to watch. The power in our house went out only for an hour on a Saturday night during an ice storm. But when the power surged back, it fried the DVR.
What I discovered is that I could watch the dramas on abc.com, and over a week or two, I caught up. Thank goodness for the Advent season, when those shows are either preempted or repeated. But going to find all of those comedies, presumably on hulu.com felt like…work. So, it’s likely I’ll just catch a couple December reruns and move forward with the new programs, though I have caught some Office webisodes.
My friend Fred and I once had this conversation about TV shows. Generally speaking, he doesn’t give up on a show. Once he starts it, he generally finishes the run, with rare exceptions. I am a bit more willing to cut my losses; American Idol and 24 are just two shows I watched then decided that wasn’t enjoying them enough, but I am sympathetic to his POV, and don’t abandon easily.
Still, I imagine that once the shows I’m watching now go off the air, I may not necessarily pick up new ones. (Yes, I said that last year, and I picked up Life on Mars, but at least that was a one-to-one replacement for Men in Trees.)
One of my shows, Boston Legal, is already gone. (BTW, what’s with those folks writing to TV Guide complaining how liberal the show is? One was shocked, SHOCKED that they made fun of Sarah Palin. Why didn’t they just CHANGE THE CHANNEL? Or wait a week or two, when the show was kaput?)
Two more shows, Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money will soon be swimming with the fishes. This will leave Brothers and Sisters, Grey’s Anatomy (stop with the dead lover sex, FCOL!) and the aforementioned Life on Mars, plus the last season of Scrubs on ABC – starts tonight!, and the Thursday comedies on NBC. Once they go off the air, I may be down to news programs, JEOPARDY!, and in season, some sports events.
That is, unless Lauren Graham gets another series. Oh, and can somebody tell me when GSN starts rerunning the JEOPARDY! episodes from November 2008?
This is not to say I don’t enjoy what I am viewing. I recommend that you watch at least the beginning of last week’s Bill Moyers Journal, where he celebrates “The Onion”; my favorite headline, “Housing Crisis Vindicates Guy Who Still Lives With Parents”. He also notes that today’s economic and militaristic crises were foretold in the 1933 Marx Brothers classic, “Duck Soup”:
MRS. TEASDALE: Gentleman, I’ve already loaned Freedonia more than half the fortune my husband left me. I consider that money lost and now you’re asking for another 20 million dollars.
Also on the show: John Lithgow on poetry and Arthur Miller.
I watched the Kennedy Center Honors and there is usually one transcendent moment. This is the one for me:
LINK
After which, you may wonder Who is Bettye LaVette? And why is this video NOT on CBS?
So, I’ll be curious just what, if anything, will pique my interest in five years. I took Mad Men season 1 from the library last week, but it has only a two-day window, and I ended up seeing none of it. I can imagine to decide to catch this season of The Office or 30 Rock on DVD, perhaps skipping over the episodes I happen to catch on air. What is clear, though, is with online access, DVD and the DVR, TV viewing has most certainly changed for me.
One more thing. The loss of the DVR meant I was watching my little portable b&w TV more often (I could have rewired the cable to the TV directly, but that would have been, you know, work to do and then undo. So I’ve opted order one of those coupons so I can get a discount on buying one of those over-the-air converters, just at a point when the digital TV subsidy program is running out of money. I ordered my coupon a couple weeks ago online, but apparently, they are to arrive via passenger pigeon.
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Postal Service lifts curtain on 2009 stamps, which will feature early, black-and-white TV shows: “Lucy and Ethel lose their struggle with a chocolate assembly line. Joe Friday demands “just the facts” with a penetrating gaze. A secret word brings Groucho a visit from a duck.”
“Folks who grew up as television came of age will delight in a 20-stamp set included in the Postal Service’s plans for 2009 recalling early memories of the medium.” This I will buy.
“Most of the commemorative stamps are priced at 42 cents, the current first-class rate. However, a rate increase is scheduled in May and the size will depend on the consumer price index.”
“The Early TV Memories stamp set is scheduled for release Aug. 11 in Los Angeles.”
ROG
The Year In Review: Mixed Media
As pop culture goes, my participation in same was pretty dismal. But I’m going to plod on and describe the highlights.
COMICS
Last month, the Comic Reporter asked its readers to “Name Five Memorable Comics-Related Things About 2008 (A Book You Read, An Experience You Had, An Event That Made You Take Notice — Anything That Would Help You In The Future Recall This Year.” I failed to participate there, but I will here.
1a. Fred Hembeck’s book came out, and I’m mentioned in the thank yous; I like seeing my name in print, what can I say? This also meant that I actually went to more comic-related shows (three) than I have in a while. At two of them, I saw Fred.
1b. At one of those shows, someone actually asked ME to sign some FantaCo Chronicles I worked on 25 years ago. What an ego boost!
1c. I also saw my friend Rocco Nigro, and re-met the inestimable Alan David Doane, who was probably an annoying teenager last I had seen him, rather than the charmer he is now.
2. Someone put out a Wikipedia page for FantaCo, a place I worked for 8.5 years, this summer. Frankly, the page was awful, riddled with errors and omissions. Fortunately, the guy contacted me, and it became the mission of mine and of my old buddy Steve Bissette to rectify the record; the thing is not perfect, but it’s a WHOLE lot better. The incident also gave me a chance to get in contact with former FantaCo owner Tom Skulan for the first time in nearly a decade.
3. Reading Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier. It explained a lot about Jack’s motivation the times I dealt with him on the phone in the early 1980s.
4. The deaths of Steve Gerber in 2008, who unbeknowst to him helped inspire this blog, and of Raoul Vezina, 25 years ago.
5. Freddie and Me by Mike Dawson, which, among other things, made me want to listen to more of the music of the group Queen.
MUSIC
I got maybe a dozen 2008 albums all year, by Lindsay Buckingham, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, REM, She and Him, Brian Wilson, Lizz Wright, a couple others plus the MOJO take on the Beatles’ white album. I liked them all at some level, but the even snarlkier than usual Newman album “stuck” the most. More old fogey music I received for Christmas and haven’t heard enough to judge: Paul McCartney, James Taylor and Johhny Cash. The latter is a 40th anniversary double CD/DVD box set of his Folsom Prison concerts; just on a quick listen, I’m happy to hear the Carl Perkins and Statler Brothers tunes for the first time.
MOVIES
A paltry number of 2008 pics so far: Iron Man (my favorite), Young@Heart, Man on Wire, Vicki Cristina Barcelona, and Synecdoche, New York. Three of them, IM, MoW and VCB made the Top 10 list at the WSJ along with WALL-E, Slumdog Millionaire and a bunch of other films I will try to see.
Yes, I did see some 2007 films in 2008 and I will undoubtedly see some 2008 films in 2009. Still, five is worse than the seven I saw last year, and catching up on video just doesn’t seem to happen, not that it’s entirely comparable anyway.
TELEVISION
Oh, heck, TV deserves its own posting. Thanks to technology, it’s about the only thing I have even a modicum of a chance to (barely) keep up with.
ROG
Merry Christmas
Some Christmas limericks from The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
Christmas by Bob Dvorak (Bob Dvorak)
Though merchants may tally its worth,
Our reflections should turn to His birth:
Christmas celebrates when
God appeared among men
With a message of peace for the earth.
Christmas by Richard Stehr (Richard Stehr)
If I missed out on Christmas, perhaps
It’s because I was one of those chaps
Who had chances to be
Perched upon Santa’s knee
But, unfortunately, let them lapse.
Christmas by Charles Silliman (Charles Silliman)
By a star, the three wise men were led.
But they found, as they stood at His bed,
That the one brightest light
On that first Christmas night
Was the glow from the Son of God’s head.
Christmas by Dottie (Anne Clements)
There’s a brightly lit tree in the hall,
Lots of cards, all displayed on the wall.
Gifts are wrapped, shopping’s done,
Now it’s time for the fun—
Happy Christmas, dear friends, one and all!
May your Christmas be filled with delight;
May your tinsel be sparkly and bright;
May your crackers go pop!
May you eat till you drop;
And may you and your in-laws not fight.
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The Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, Many, MANY Faces of Santa Claus! by Fred Hembeck
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Kringus Offerings by Samurai Frog
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The arithmetic of Christmas: This person’s been talking about Christmas only since April. While it’s been less than 2% of my lifetime since last Christmas, it’s been over 20% of hers.
ROG