Category: television

Twist and Shout

STILL stuck in my mind: that great dance sequence from the movie 500 Days of Summer which makes more sense in context.
The song namechecks the song “Twist and Shout”.


Then there’s this new show on Nickelodeon the daughter is watching called The Fresh Beat Band. They were originally called the Jumparounds, plugged so often in the commercials as such that my daughter still refers them that way. (Also, she knows I think that their initial name was goofy, but the new moniker is boring – generic is what I actually said, but boring is a reasonable translation.) Think the Monkees aimed at four-year-olds. The Hispanic guitarist goes by Kiki and the red-haired percussionist is Marina. But it’s the guys’ names that I should note. The preternaturally tall guy is the beat boxer Twist, while the black keyboardist is named Shout. Twist and Shout? I expect that if this program catches on, the players will be replaced as though they were in Menudo. (None of them go by their real names.)

Which of course brings us to one of the great cover songs of all time, by the Beatles. Just saw this clip again on the Beatles Anthology, which I have on VHS. Don’t know why this song doesn’t get more respect in those “best covers” polls.
***
Speaking of covers, I’ve really gotten into the new television show Glee, but I must admit there are some 21st century songs I couldn’t tell you the original artist without looking it up. One piece I did recognize instantly, was Queen’s Somebody to Love. Probably my favorite cover thus far on the show.

But I still prefer the original. I own only Queen album, a greatest hits collection, and that on vinyl. (And unlike my CDs, my LPs are in great disarray.) Any Queen album recommendations?

“If you think you’re too small to have an impact,
try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.”

— Johan Bruyneel
***
VOTE

ROG

ROG

October Ramblin’

One foot in front of the other.

SATURDAY: I took the daughter to the Medieval Faire. She enjoyed the silly magician and the juggler who had an ax, a flaming stick and a rubber chicken in the air at once. She also enjoyed the Punch and Judy show, as much because the puppeteer had me control one of his marionettes for a short time; demented show with the devil showing up and Rensselaer (city across the river from Albany) a linguistic substitute for hell.
I always enjoy the crowning of the boy bishop; it’s all very High Church. Wait, it’s now the “child bishop”, which means the bishop is, for the first tiome in my recollection, a girl! Brava!

Then a brief trip to a pumpkin carving party. Lydia had lots of kids to play with and didn’t want to leave.

Finally, we got a babysitter and went to a friend’s 40th birthday party, which was pleasant enough.

SUNDAY: Choir rehearsal, then church service, then meeting for the Black History Month planning.

Mother of one of the kids at the pumpkin carving party called to note that her son was feeling lethargic; ah, Lydia, too.

Still we all went to the State Museum, mostly because Lydia wanted to go on the carousel. A church group of about 10 saw Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art; 1609; This Great Nation Will Endure: Photographs of the Great Depression; and Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York: A Triumph of Public Art. And yes, we all rode the carousel, even only one of us was under 40, and at least one of us was twice 40.

Then ANOTHER choir rehearsal.

MONDAY, TUESDAY: Home with a sick child. Her temperature was up Monday morning, then down Tuesday morning, when I thought she was rallying. But feverish Tuesday afternoon. When she was well was actually more work, keeping her occupied with Sorry, Uno, pick-up-sticks, Candyland… Difficult blogging conditions.

WEDNESDAY: Work, which comparatively speaking, was a vacation; the wife stayed home with the child. Although I got little done the first hour because my computer, and only MY computer, somehow decided to leave the LAN, and I had to wait for a techie to fix it.

There was this cellphone conversation in an elevator. The person standing near me: “Yeah, he was a good father. He never got drunk in the garage every weekend.” I didn’t know this person, but I felt embarrassed on her behalf.

Also, these guys were coming through our offices, only one of whom works there. So I say to the one I know, “Nobody else is here. Just you and me.” And one of the other guys walking by says in this condescending tone, “That’s ‘you and I‘.” “Shut UP! Wasn’t even talking to you; I don’t even KNOW you. Shut UP!” I thought that, but didn’t say it.
And in any case, almost no one would say, “Just we” in casual conversation; one would say say, “just us”, the objective version, at least colloquially. Even my English teacher-wife couldn’t discern for sure.
***
Old records from 1895-1925 on the original victrolas

Care for Caregivers: Getting the help you need could save your life.

Stop Drowning in Mail: 4-Step System to Manage Mail Overload
***
Picture above came in the e-mail yesterday with his note: “Eddie Haskell, The Beaver and Wally! HOLY Mackerel!! Are we REALLY that Old???” Yes, an excess of punctuation there.

ROG

ROG

Now greener ogre

I came across this software that takes phrases and makes several anagrams. One of the samples is the title of this piece. It also took the line “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” and changed it to “Neatly weighs up mawkish philosophy about unforseen reality”, which I thought was rather funny.

Saturday, we had plans to go to a museum a distance away, only to discover that it was unexpectedly (and illogically) closed. Plan B involved the usual housecleaning and shopping. But there came a point were my wife was going to take a nap and the daughter had fallen asleep on the sofa. Could I go to the grocery store to get some things?

I was surprised a bit by my disappointment. The idea of being in my own house, well not alone, but with it to myself was SO tantalizing. Going out to the store seemed counterintuitive, but go I did.

On the way back I run into five boys, maybe aged 14, on bicycles; no helmets, BTW. I too was on my bike. one asked me where Central Avenue was. Central Avenue is only THE main street in Albany. The answer wasn’t that simple; if they wanted a low number, it would have made sense to head east on Western Avenue, but the higher numbers would suggest going straight (north) on West Lawrence, ignoring the fact that the road seems to end, something you can do on a bike, though not a car.

I travel on, and see them AGAIN on North Allen, in front of the elementary school. The same kid said he couldn’t find Central. I said, “You have to keep going.” Another kid asked, “Is it beyond Washington Avenue?”

“Yes”.

Second boy: “See, I TOLD you so!”

Then boy #1 told me about some “furry” candy he wanted to buy, but his friends were going to go buy pot. Was this true, or an attempt to get a reaction from me? As it turns out the address they gave me was in Colonie, well past the Colonie Center mall, and I warned them it as a long ride.

I restated my directions: ride until you run into a funeral home. At which point, one of the other boys burst into a crying jag. I was told that his grandmother had just died. But this was “crying” that sounded mighty insincere, and I feel they’re trying to yank my chain, though I passingly apologize.

They went on their way, I mine, left wondering: who ARE these kids, where did they come from, what did they REALLY want in Colonie, and how the heck do they not know where Central Avenue is?
***
I’ve been having a lot of vivid dreams recently. One involved a relative of mine on my father’s side who accused me of mocking her when she had a child out of wedlock. this is untrue, as far as i know, but the specificity of that and other dreams is fascinating to me. These are the dreams you wish you could film, or are really glad you cannot. Another dream was particularly grotesque, again with references to my father’s people. These things are supposedly manifestations of something, but I’m at a loss to ascertain what.
***
Why has my mother’s phone number in North Carolina changed? New area code AND the seven digits. I’ve known the old number impressed in my mind for years. Arrgh.
***
Arthur at AmeriNZ on bigotry, in this case, a homophobic columnist.
***
Thom Wade links to the Jon Stewart/Daily Show assessment of an Al Franken amendment to a Congressional bill against rape by governmental contractors. 30 Republicans, who I thoughtfully listed in the comments to that post, opposed the bill.

ROG

ROG

Oh, Yeah, Television. I Remember Television

The wife and daughter left to visit parents/grandparents Sunday afternoon until Monday afternoon. I had this impressive list of things to do. Not the least of which is to remove clothes from the armoire I have and put them in the new dresser I bought from my in-laws the day before. I always disliked the armoire I have currently. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t buy it, and I felt it was imposed on me. But my clothes had to go SOMEWHERE when Lydia took over the room which had a massive closet where my clothes used to reside, especially for socks and underwear.

One time. one of my sisters rearranged my armoire, so that all of my T-shirts were in one large section. I realized early on that I HATED this. Moreover, my T-shirts hated it. I may have mentioned this before: Karen Sammler, a character on one of my favorite shows of all time, Once and Again, would organize her underwear and socks in such a way that they would each get used approximately the same number of times. In the armoire, the most recently-washed T-shirts tended to get washed, put away and be the only ones I could easily get to. I suppose I could have rearranged them back, but that wasn’t optimal either.

So when I put my T-shirts in the dresser drawer – ah! There were T-shirts in there I hadn’t even SEEN in two years. It takes SO little to make me, and the T-shirts, happy.

I should have emptied the rest of the armoire, but I discovered this device in my living room that discovered I could watch anytime I wanted, without negotiation, called the television. Since I was over two weeks behind on everything, save for The Office, I decided to actually watch some of the new and old shows I had recorded.

The Office (NBC): watched with the wife the Pam and Jim wedding show. My, Dwight seems even nastier this year than before, with real potential to create actual harm.

Modern Family (ABC): I’ve seen only seen the first episode and I failed to record the second. It didn’t really come together for me until the family actually came together at the end. Look forward to seeing again.

Glee (FOX): I missed that premiere episode in the spring. When my wife and I saw it rebroadcast this fall, we weren’t sure it was worth seeing again; it seemed a bit facile. But the second show sealed the deal. It featured my adoptee Victor Garber as the father of the lead character. Jane Lynch’s character seemed less shrill and more devious.

The Good Wife (CBS): I decided to watch this because it features actors from other shows I’ve watched. Not only Julianna Margulies from E/R, but also Josh Charles from Sports Night, Christine Baranski from Cybil (and a lot of other stuff). Also, Matt Czuchry, Rory Gilmore’s obnoxiously pompous boyfriend in Gilmore Girls, who plays the same pompous jerk here, and Chris Noth, doing some cross between his characters on Law & Order and Sex in the City. I thought the premise – woman stands by her man after sex scandal a la Silda Wall Spitzer with Eliot, then needs a job – was pretty thin, enough for a one-off movie but hardly a series. But after two episodes, I am looking forward to see what happens, how it plays. The secondary story about her home life (two kids and her mother-in-law) has potential.

Brothers and Sisters (ABC): The tease of the first episode suggested trouble for one of Nora’s (Sally Field) children, and intentionally make you think it’s one rather than another. I was irritated. But I’m two eps behind, so i haven’t seen the resolution.

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC): Yes, I’m still watching it. I thought the premiere was a rather good example of how people grieve, in this case, the death of George; it’s not all at once, and you can postpone the pain, but not really avoid it. the second show was about cutbacks and a whole other type of pain and grief. Izzy (Katherine Heigl) hasn’t irritated me as much as she has in previous seasons, but I’m not unhappy that the actress will be taking off time to make a movie.

But I also watched football. Not a whole game, mind you. Overtime of the Broncos over the Patriots; are the Broncos for real? Interesting how the Red Sox and the Patriots seem to be on the same arc – ultimate success to also-rans. I also watched a little baseball, primarily Game 3 of the Yankees over the Twins. Caught the baserunning blunder on the Twins’ part and homers by A-Rod and Posada. But I just couldn’t stay up another half inning to see if the Yankees would hold the lead. (They did.)

People often ask me if I saw “last night’s JEOPARDY!”; the answer, almost invariably, is “no”. So they often tell me what the Final JEOPARDY! answer is, testing me to see if I would have correctly gotten it, but almost always, some major element of the answer is missing.

Well, back to sharing the set with the wife and child; it was fun while it lasted.

ROG

ROG

Guilding Light’s Out


The end of the 72-year run of the soap opera Guiding Light, started in 1937 on the radio, and since 1952 on television, probably got more play on CBS recently than the show has garnered in years. Stories on both 60 Minutes (along with Barack Obama and Teddy Kennedy, FCOL,) and CBS Sunday Morning showed that the institution was finally getting its due, even if it was to sound its death knell.

When I was a kid, my grandmother and my great aunt used to watch their “stories” almost every day. Binghamton, in the early 1960s, only had two TV stations, Channels 12 (CBS) and 40 (NBC), and only one was a VHS station that did not require rabbit ears, and that was the former, WNBF.

So they would watch Edge of Night and Secret Storm, which were on, if I remember correctly, at 3:30 and 4 pm, respectively. I saw them often enough that I was reasonably familiar with the story lines and characters. But the other CBS shows they watched, The Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow, were on while I was at school. This bout of soap watching ended when I was old enough to go to my own home after school rather than to my grandma’s, at some point between fifth and seventh grade.

I did watch many of the soaps in February 1975, but I was depressed.

When I was a Census enumerator in 1990, after I had made my initial daytime passes to the homes, I had to concentrate on nights and weekends. So I was home a lot during the day. I caught on NBC a soap called Generations, followed by Days of our Lives and Another World. Generations got canceled in 1991, and Days had some plot line so ridiculous, even by soap opera standards, that I dumped it in 1992 or so. Another World I watched until a week before it ended in 1999, when Carol and I went to Barbados on our honeymoon. I could have taped them on the VCR, but there was only six hours of capacity, and I opted for prime time, season-ending fare. I keep hoping that the Soap Opera channel someday shows that last week of AW.

So, for some obscure reason, I watched the last episode of Guiding Light. It looks a LOT different than it used to. It’s mostly outside, for one thing, and they don’t appear to be using the same type of filming techniques.

There was a LOT of hugging in this episode, so much that if I had made it a drinking game, I would have had to have been rushed to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. To the degree I can tell, the lesbian couple are now happy because one member of the couple has made peace with her ex-husband, naming the baby she’s carrying after him; one of the actress used to be on Days. The black couple finally gets married on its fourth attempt; good thing, too, because SHE’S pregnant as well. Some time before this, the black couple walks in on the interracial couple in the midst of them about to have sex. One young woman going away to college in California is suddenly joined by a second young woman, because her mother made a phone call to get her instantly admitted; while it’s never stated where Springfield is, obviously it is far from California.

The only people in this show I know at all are the “supercouple”, Reva and Joshua, who have each been married nine times, three times to each other. Will they get back together for good? That gets resolved in a One Year Later motif.

Was it worthwhile watching? Maybe not; tying up all those loose ends seemed terribly convenient. But there’s something to be said for acknowledging a passing.
 ROG

ROG
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial