Here's a look back at 2008.
- ▼ 2008 (28)
- ▼ December 2008 (3)
- ▼ April 2008 (4)
- ▼ March 2008 (3)
- ▼ February 2008 (5)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Year in Review/A Look Ahead
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
The Stonecutters Song
Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!
Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do! We do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do! We do!
Who robs cavefish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do! We do!
After I read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, I was charged with positive feeling for humanity. The example of Monsiegneur Bienvenu filled me with the desire to do good. Some years later I read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. What a bunch of idiots I’m surrounded by, I thought. How could I have let Hugo manipulate me so? Young Milton Friedman, among a coterie of
Roll call of nations:
The current American mortgage and stock market crash happened after the book came out but we can see the antecedents in this book. One chilling passage refers to the bailout of the business associates of the
The remainder of the national debt was mostly spent on payments, as well as shady bailouts for private firms. In 1982, just before Argentina’s dictatorship collapsed, the junta did one last favor for the corporate sector…the state would absorb the debts of large multinational and domestic firms that had, like Chile’s pirhana’s, borrowed themselves to the verge of bankruptcy…[T]hese companies continued to own their assets and profits, but the public had to pay off between $15 and $20 billion of their debts; among the companies…were Ford Motor Argentina, Chase Manhattan, Citibank, IBM, and Mercedes-Benz.
Any of those names ring a bell?
***
For years I’ve been complaining about Timesman Thomas Friedman and his clever “don’t blame me” columns and Klein quotes him, “We are not doing nation-building in
Physical torture in Argentina and Abu Ghraib, the near-complete privatization of New Orleans’ public school system, the lawless reign of Blackwater security forces and the profiteering of Cheney’s Halliburton in Iraq are not the result of natural forces or an invisible hand that will make things right, Klein posits, but part of a plan to exploit chaos. Why? Simple greed and power.
The real shock is that most of the reporting in the book is not from secret sources but from the public record—major dailies, weeklies, wire services, websites. The power grab after 9/11 and government incompetence happened in plain sight, promulgated by Republicans and abetted by Democrats. Either her book is true or this is the greatest conspiracy of the century, aiming to smear patriots like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush et al. who put Country First ahead of money and power. Read and decide.
POSTSCRIPT
America 2009 reminds me of Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror. In the 15 c., there were rich and poor. The middle class hadn’t been invented yet. No subject blamed the French king for his disastrous wars against
Friday, December 26, 2008
Merry Christmas from Mel Tormé
This is from my private stock and you probably won't find it on YouTube...
Let's view a clip from a Mel Tormé PBS Christmas show from the '90s. The song is the title tune from a Sonja Heine picture, IT HAPPENED IN SUN VALLEY. It's one of my favorites and after you hear this shamelessly romantic tune, this old gem might end up as one of yours too. Merry Christmas!
Ten awesome points if you can guess who the spangled band leader is before Mel mentions him by name. There was a time when every weeknight on TV, he played the greatest music ever written (which we only heard in 10 second intros and outros).
Clip from The Christmas Songs (1992), copyright WMVS/WMVT and Milwaukee Symphony.
Let's view a clip from a Mel Tormé PBS Christmas show from the '90s. The song is the title tune from a Sonja Heine picture, IT HAPPENED IN SUN VALLEY. It's one of my favorites and after you hear this shamelessly romantic tune, this old gem might end up as one of yours too. Merry Christmas!
Ten awesome points if you can guess who the spangled band leader is before Mel mentions him by name. There was a time when every weeknight on TV, he played the greatest music ever written (which we only heard in 10 second intros and outros).
Clip from The Christmas Songs (1992), copyright WMVS/WMVT and Milwaukee Symphony.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
44 and 43
DREAMS FROM MY FATHER
I’m a little late to the party but have you read President-Elect Obama's first book? (Stay tuned for the review.) After hearing his Superman gag at the Al Smith dinner. It got me thinking:
Little Barry Obama loved comic books.
He was raised by a kindly old couple from
After high school he lived in Gotham, where he worked as a writer and then moved to
In his early years he kept his background secret, afraid that his real identity would alienate people.
The woman he loves has two Ls in her name, like
His first act as president will be to restore the American way.
You'll never guess what the title of the first part of the book is:
Origins (a conceit from comic books).
Yup, he’s Superman.
Dreams from My Father is a memoir that reads like a bildungsroman, the colorful peregrinations of a young man in search of his identity. I recommend it highly. Ignore the nut jobs who claim that Bill Ayres wrote the first draft on the back of Obama’s Indonesian birth certificate.
W.
Last week I paid 75 cents for the new format Post, circular size, and 12 bucks to see W. Great movie. Stacy Keach knocks it out of the park with an unironic turn as the reverend who brings W to the Lord. Laura Bush will be flattered as even in the later scenes she's portrayed by Elizabeth Banks with no wrinkles and still very sexy, like Pat Nixon (Joan Allen) in Oliver Stone's Nixon.
Josh Brolin is dangerously close to an impression but never crosses the line. That little actor who looks like Truman Capote is an amazing Karl Rove. Richard Dreyfuss is back as a movie star--his stock had been so low in
Stone takes verbatim quotes we might know from watching Letterman’s “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches” series and puts them in different places, which is ok because I know the difference between a doc and fiction.
Why didn't this movie do better? Because people are tired of the subject. A surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a screwup on whom tough love failed but Jesus and will power succeeded.
I predict the real W the will become a popular TV evangelist as that’s where his heart lies. He won’t be making much money giving speeches but preaching something he knows he believes rather than something he thinks he believes in because smart people told him it’s so, might loosen his mangled tongue.
Next post: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Wolf. This is a Naomi-explains-it-all, positing that the Chicago School and guru Milton Friedman are responsible for most of the worldwide political brutality and the intensely related economic shock and awe of the last 50 years. This replaces my father's Irishman's thesis: pick a point on the globe where there's trouble, any point, and you'll find the English were or are behind it. I almost dropped the book when she listed the overspending and bad-investing bums who first sponsored and finally took bailouts from the departing Argentine junta of the '80s: Citibank, Ford Motor Company, ... The usual suspects.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
PIECES OF MY HEART, by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman
A parade of senior thesps is rolling through
Pieces of My Heart, by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman
This is a lusty and entertaining tome and Wagner leaves no one out. HarperCollins should have at least provided a name index (Tony Curtis has one). Pieces is a story of a boy well-born in 1930, too young for World War II, and comfortably caddying his way through his teens for Hollywood royalty such as Gable, Astaire, Niven, to name a few legends. Beautiful ladies abound and the biggest revelation was his four-year affair with Barbara Stanwyck, making them the Ashton-Demi of their time, except in those times it was scandalous for an older woman to be with a man half her age. Their affair was intense and known only to their friends.
Wagner talks very little about acting or the details of any project he was involved in. The real theme in the book (the jacket flap writer alludes briefly to a father who wanted him to quit acting and join the family business of real estate and building) is a man in search of a father figure. He found one directly in Spencer Tracy and in other degrees in David Niven and Fred Astaire. My favorite chapter is titled “Fred!…Fred!…Feed!” When Wagner would “get down about…my career, he would take me aside and tell me, ‘Don’t ever get negative. There are a lot of bumps in the road; you’ve got to keep your chin up. The most important thing is to keep going.’” Wagner half-apologizes that, “None of this is profound, but all of it is true, and the fact that it was coming from Fred Astaire forced me to take it seriously.” Hey RJ, you’re a good dad, and you must know by now, that’s what a dad is: unconditional love and support. Their teamup on It Takes a Thief was priceless. The anecdote about Astaire making his first appearance on set, spontaneously breaking out into a dance as the crew welcomed him with infectious rhythmic clapping, is goosebumpy and worth the cost of the book.
For the general reading public the parts about Natalie Wood seem to draw the most interest. I imagine the ladies from The View will key on that. As far as I can tell, no new ground is broken, except for the fact that this is Wagner’s first full public statements on the events leading to her tragic accidental death.
RJ is serious about his art but not himself. His most recent comic turns in the Austin Powers series and in TV’s Two and a Half Men attest to that.
A note on profanity: the table of contents has the chapter titles, each extracted from a line from that chapter. For a class actor, I was surprised to see the f-bomb, the c-word, and the other c-word so prominent in the contents. My wife suggested that I Wite-Out the offending words before passing the book to Mom. She’s almost ninety. Recently I gave her a book that I hadn’t read and after reading it she asked me with arched brow, “Did you read this book?” This usually means she’s found something offensive. Odd, it never stops her from reading the rest of the book.
Next up: Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama, President-Elect of the
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Let Freedom Ring
And let the hearings begin.
1. Who authorized torture?
2. Who made up the WMD?
3. Who profited from the war?
Cheney, Cheney, and Cheney.
1. Who authorized torture?
2. Who made up the WMD?
3. Who profited from the war?
Cheney, Cheney, and Cheney.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Baseball; Margie and the Super Bug
BASEBALLWe caught a lot of baseball as the season wound down. Brigid won Grand Prize in a Citibank/Mets contest and we spent a great Labor Day weekend at the beautiful Westin Diplomat with Margie and Brigid and her girlfriend Julie, enjoying a Met victory over the Marlins. Here is some video of David Wright with bags full. I won't give it away but it set up a late inning grand slam by Carlos Beltran to win the game. Guess which guy the Mets are going to let go?
In September we saw last-week-ever games at Shea and Yankee Stadiums. I had gotten two comps from the NY Blood Center for the Mets and went with my brother Dennis on 9/23. For the Mets, beating the Cubs with Santana leading the way, was one of the last happy recaps of another disappointing season. Before Dennis left he said goodbye to Section 1, where he and I sat when we were kids. We used to get to the park at 10:30 a.m. when the gates opened for a double-header.
The week before on September 18, I paid to see the Yankees beat the White Sox, Moose Mussina winning his 19th (on his way to become the first man to win 20 for the first time at 39), and Bobby Abreu hitting two HRs. Upper deck seats, a few rows from the last row, great seats behind the plate slightly up the third base line. Better get a last look at St. Patrick's, she's next to go.
MARGIE AND THE SUPERBUG
For many months Margie had a lump on her left hand. Every time she bumped the lump it hurt and I, like a fool, advised surgery. What followed was weeks of misery.
Hearing this story, I've heard several different approaches to handling a bump. One was whacking it with a ruler. Another was putting the hand flat on a table and dropping a thick book from a good height onto the lump. Both approaches reported mixed success.
So she went in for ambulatory surgery, came out with a lot of pain, and was prescribed preventative antibiotics. That's when real misery began. Her intestinal system went down, thanks to, I believe, the antibiotic destroying the good bacteria in her colon. After several days of woe, I sent her to my GI guy, Dr. Jay Weissbluth.
Dr. J is a genius. When I had my hour of need 10 years he said, "First we'll make you better, then we'll figure out what's wrong with you." Or, as he was getting ready to do my scope, he pulled a book off the shelf and said, "Let me check this, I've never done one before." Margie was in good hands and she's getting better. Should I mention the doctor who prescribed the antibiotic that made her sick for a month? Contact me and I'll tell you. He's in Park Slope. I'm not a doctor and I can't say for sure if my diagnosis is correct, but I can only wonder how many people he has serially prescribed this junk to.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Looks at 5 Books
One of the great things about working full-time again is having scheduled time to read on the subway, notwithstanding the pain in the neck of trying to read in the new cars on the Q that have less seats and more standing room. Here are some capsule reviews:BANANAS: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World by Peter Chapman; Canongate
I read this during the May farm trip but will grandfather this title on the list as much of it was read on the long bus trip. Substitute a crate of bananas for a barrel of oil and you get the angle of this book. Big government and big business ravage small Latin American nations to exploit their resources from the post-Civil War era to the 1970s. There's even an appearance by the ubiquitous E. Howard Hunt, the Forrest Gump of skullduggery, charter member of the Villains, Thieves, and Scoundrels Union, who shows up subverting the government in Guatemala for the CIA's "Operation Success" (featuring a cameo by Che Guevara). Very entertaining reading.
POCKETFUL OF NAMES by Joe Coomer; Graywolf Press
This a novel that I picked up at Brooklyn Book Festival last year. As I wrote last year, "Graywolf Press of
POSMAN'S ANNUAL SUMMER SALE
The next three books come from Posman's (Grand Central Station) annual green dot summer sale. This summer we bought three from the "Buy two and get the third one free" table.
MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN by Jonathan Lethem; Vintage Comtemporaries
The protagonist is an orphaned detective with Tourette's trying to find out who killed his mentor. Lethem accurately captures the earthy vocabulary and mentality of the Italian subculture that I'm familiar with. I can attest to this--I grew up with guys with names like Bagdagliacca, Iervolino, Alfano, et cetera. I didn't really get the feel that I was reading a detective novel, despite the way the book is promoted. It's more of a story about a gofer pretending to be a detective. The Tourette's angle wears you out as it's supposed to, listening to someone who says almost every thing that comes into his head. Gritty slices of sidewalk life that make up Court St., Brooklyn and New York City.
THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS by P. G. Wodehouse; Vintage Books
Pure joy, one of the series of stories of the idly rich Bertie Wooster and his brilliant valet, Jeeves. As I read this I thought of Seinfeld and his series about nothing. I also discovered that Jeeves' first name wasn't revealed until the next-to-last book in the series (which ran from 1919-1974!!), which made me think of Kramer and his secret first name, eventually discovered. Then I thought of the pilot that Jerry shoots called "Jerry," about a man and his butler. Theory: other Seinfeld plots may have their roots in Wodehouse. I will explore this further at a future date.
APPOINTMENT IN SAMARA by John O'Hara; Vintage Books
A drink thrown in a man's face leads to the downfall of a Depression-era car salesman from the in-crowd in a small town. O'Hara's first novel, the sexual frankness shocked me considering the pub date (1934). If I had known how advanced the treatment of human desire was portrayed I might not have lent the book to my 89-year-old mother before I had the chance to read it first. However, Mom assures me she's not as sheltered as I think and not to worry about it. She did ask, "Did you read this yet?' and that's usually a sign that I let one slip though the cracks. One part of Mom's enjoyment of the book, she said, was that lived through that era and got all the references. When I read a book about the '30s and the characters start quoting song lyrics and titles, as they frequently do here, I'm amazed at how many I know. Very depressing novel, written during a Depression when no one knew if or when it would end, with a sense of dread that it could even affect the well off if it lasted any longer.
COMING UP
Family trip to Florida to see the Mets; new Sony HD radio: for hobbyists only or the next big thing?
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Memo to Self: Don't Quit Your Job
After freelancing for 15 months and seeing my unemployment run out, I found a full-time job. Thanks to Governor Paterson, if I had still been looking I would now be eligible for another 13 weeks of benefits. See the graphic for an important adviso from the NY State Dept. of Labor.AMERICAN IN PARIS
My daughter is taking a semester in France. She's a French major so this isn't a dilettante on holiday. She's got spunk, a lot more than me, and I like spunk. I was talking to my brother-in-law about his electric bill and his kids turning on the air conditioner too much. I offered to trade my cell phone bill with international roaming for his electric bill. Yup, it costs more to pay a cell phone bill that to run a house.
CLASSIC CONAN
Best joke I've heard in a while, from Conan O'Brien:
John McCain invited his grandchildren to visit him for Father's Day. Unfortunately they couldn't make it. They were all busy visiting their grandchildren.BIG BROTHER
I love my family but I lose a lot of respect for their judgment when they all watch Big Brother.
THE HARMONSITS on DVD (1997)
One night I was watching that odd show, Classic Arts Showcase, on late night cable. A performance by the Comedian Harmonists, a highly popular German singing group from the 1920s and '30s was shown performing "Happy Days Are Here Again" in German and also in English It led me to this great movie about the group. The beauty of song is juxtaposed against the rising Nazi regime, who eventually destroy the group because half the members are Jewish. The harmonies are sublime and I recommend this movie on every level, especially if you love 20th century music such as The Four Lads, the Beach Boys, or the Manhattan Transfer. I especially enjoyed their trip to America, where artful camera shots placed them in Central Park, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. Note: The Algonquin Hotel is shown under the Brooklyn Bridge and that's a minor quibble.
FREE STUFF
My new company has great benefits, free bagels every week, summer hours, after work mixers, a good retirement plan, nice people. Have I been so used and abused in other jobs so much that when I stumble into a good thing I don't trust it? I blame seeing The Twilight Zone, "How to Serve Man" for this subconscious dread.
Hey-Ohhhhh! 1000 AWESOME POINTS TO JIMMY KIMMEL
In the words of Ben Folds, it sucks to get old. When he heard Ed McMahon was broke, Kimmel offered him a new/old job, TV pitchman. Ed needs the money. How did Ed end up broke? There's a Who's Who of old guys in showbiz take young wives and their lives and afterlives take a turn for the worse.
Ed told Larry King, "I want to speak for the million people [in America] who now have foreclosure signs on their houses...If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens," he said. "A couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that." Ed's wife said "Over the years, it's a combination of maybe Ed working so hard and not looking at proper management. We didn't keep our eye on the ball. We made mistakes. It's been tough but somehow our marriage is strong."
My analysis: Cagney was very ill and fell under the thrall of a women who exploited him and made him do a TV movie when he couldn't even talk. Astaire married a women who, after he died, sold his image to sell a vacuum cleaner. Kelly danced to heaven and his young wife had him cremated before his children could see the body. TMZ reports this new Mrs. McMahon spends a lot of money and could this be why Ed had to overextend himself, to pay her bills? I wish Johnny were here to help him out.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
What's Nu?
Dear Blog:
How to Shear Sheep
We lost our turtle Speedy this month.
Cathedral of Hay
Each time I go I try a new farm job. Last time up there I was spreading manure, this time I was working the chain saw cutting logs. It’s a whole other world there and I have to get myself to the farm more often.
How to Shear Sheep
We lost our turtle Speedy this month.
MINI-REVIEW: THE SAVAGES on DVD
SAVAGES portrayed one of the most common but least portrayed relationships in film, brother/sister, and for that alone deserves credit, in addition to taking on a topic that’s not box office, caring for an elderly parent.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
GREEDY LITTLE PIGGY: THE STIMULUS REBATE; BATTLESTAR GALACTICA; I Want MY DTV: Part 2
GREEDY LITTLE PIGGY: THE STIMULUS REBATE
I thought we were getting $1200 dollars as MFJ tax filers, but it turns out we’re getting $600 due to our low tax liability in 2007 (thank you, tuition tax benefits and underemployment).
Wow! Six hundred semolians! What to spend it on? Here’s my wish list:
1. HD Radio
2. Big screen TV
3. Giant turtle tank
4. New bed
5. Travel
6. Retire some credit card debt.
Six it is.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
The hilarious appearance of the cast of BSG in costume earlier this year, doing the usually tiresome Top Ten List on Letterman: "Top Ten Reasons to Watch the New Season of 'Battlestar Galactica,'" made me realize I was missing something. I then started watching the last few episodes of season 3 and the beginning of the fourth and final season. Simultaneously I have been catching up via Netflix and Blockbuster from the beginning of the series, creating my own mega-flashback. One sign that it’s a great show--I know what’s going to happen in most cases but it doesn’t ruin anything, just like seeing Romeo and Juliet.
What makes BSG different from other SF shows is that good characters do terrible things, not because they are under the sway of an alien life form, but because humans and human-aspiring cybernetic beings (Cylons) who look just like us sometimes do terrible things. Some of the plots look like they were ripped from the headlines Law and Order style per the mid-years of this decade, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some self-examination of torture, rigged elections, abortion, the use of military force, religion, and the wisdom of listening to voices in your head without physical evidence is a good thing. “All will be revealed” the commercials tell us and I can’t wait. The idea of doing a prequel series after this one ends sounds like the worst idea since AfterMASH, but so did a reimagining of the original Battlestar Galactica.
I Want MY DTV: Part 2
I took my digital-to-analog converter box to my mother in Gravesend and my sister in
the reception was not perfect, even with roof antennas in
They can make announcements and advertise and send notices in the mail but one thing is for sure: there will be a lot of people in February 2009 who will think their TVs are broken.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Reader Mail
Q: Do you write about everything thing you see?
A: No I don't. For instance, I recently saw my niece in a middle school production of ANNIE. She played Molly, the lead orphan after Annie. She was great and will make a great Annie in the future if she chooses. This was an authorized production edited for school kids and they actually call the show ANNIE, Jr. The TV production of ANNIE (not the movie) was one of the best things ever on TV.
A: No I don't. For instance, I recently saw my niece in a middle school production of ANNIE. She played Molly, the lead orphan after Annie. She was great and will make a great Annie in the future if she chooses. This was an authorized production edited for school kids and they actually call the show ANNIE, Jr. The TV production of ANNIE (not the movie) was one of the best things ever on TV.
Q: What about movies?
A: Mrs. 1Ott and I recently saw BABY MAMA starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. It’s a piece of fluff with flashes of humor, not as funny as Tina’s 30 ROCK but better than SNL. The last episode of of 30 ROCK was very funny, with Jack (Alec Baldwin) trying to get himself fired from his government job. When I see Tina with a sole writing credit on a 30 ROCK ep, I’m amazed. She was hired to act in BABY MAMA, and some interviewers are confused by that, thinking she wrote it also (it was written and directed by former SNL scribe Michael McCullers). Tina humbly claims to have only four moves as an actress but that’s 2-3 more than most.
Q: What are you reading?
A: I’m reading but having a hard time finishing BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN by Charles Bock. There’s not much of a connected story among the multiple lead characters, but the descriptive language gives you a good feel for the losers in
Q: Do you still root for the Mets?
A: Ha! Yes, I had flirted with going to the Phils for a year after the existential meltdown of the 2007 Mets (losing a 7 game lead with 17 games to go), like a Catholic trying out the Lutheran Church, but the Mets are like that cowboy buddy movie--I can’t quit you.
Q: What’s on your iPod?
A: I don’t have an iPod but as I’ve written about before, I have an old
Q: You still listen to the radio. Why?
A: I like radio. I miss deejays like Ted Brown and William B. Williams. I’m hoping that someone takes an FM HD channel and runs standards like the old WNEW. That would make me run to buy an HD radio. Although, if they continue to offer Internet streamng, HD may be moot. In the meantime, I listen to High Standards on XM73 and hope that the upcoming merger doesn’t affect XM73.
Q: Still running?
A: Yup. The other day I felt something in my left hip that I never felt before. Each new ache makes you feel more alive I tell myself.
Q. How are the kids?
A: Two are coming home from college this week so I guess it's my favorite time of the year.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The New York Radio Message Board (NYRMB)
· VHF Channel 6 (home of Pulse 87 FM) running wildlife video - Brian Black 19:20:40
- Re: VHF Channel 6 (home of Pulse 87 FM) running wildlife video - Robert Casey 20:14:30
- Re: Re: VHF Channel 6 (home of Pulse 87 FM) running wildlife video - MikeN 23:20:14
- Re: Re: VHF Channel 6 (home of Pulse 87 FM) running wildlife video - Brian Black 20:24:46
- Re: VHF Channel 6 (home of Pulse 87 FM) running wildlife video - Greg Tallman 19:53:56
- Re: Re: VHF Channel 6 (home of Pulse 87 FM) running wildlife video - MikeN 23:18:22
- Re: Re: VHF Channel 6 (home of Pulse 87 FM) running wildlife video - Tony Santiago 20:06:39
Posted by Brian Black on
I'm seeing scenes of
Thursday, April 24, 2008
John Adams on HBO
Paul Giamatti stars as John Adams with Laura Linney as his wife, Abigail, David Morse as
For most people, the presidency would be the peak experience of a life but for Adams, we see through Giamatti’s Emmy-worthy performance, a man living with the dread while he’s in office that history will not treat his term (1797-1801) as our second president kindly due to his nuanced stand between the perennial global rivals,
The best episodes are Part 3, in which Adams travels by sea and takes part in a battle against the Brits as he and his young son (future president John Quincy Adams) journey to France to get support for the new revolution; and Part 4, where John and Abigail are reunited and we see the events leading to the Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the Revolutionary War.
Outstanding work is done by David Morse as Washington, who is played with a Mona Lisa grin on his face, or is it his bad teeth bothering him? Stephen Dillane as Jefferson is so good that I hope someone will think of him to play
If you don’t have HBO, get it for this or rent it when the DVD comes out. You’ll be glad you did.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Free Ebook: Beautiful Children by Charles Bock; I Want my DTV
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free
Well, Bill Gates told Homer you don’t rich by writing checks, as he busted up Homer’s Internet business. Ironically, Homer didn’t even own a computer. But the new/old paradigm of giving the product away has been a hallmark of the online experience. We take for granted free software (QuickTime, DivX, etc.) and that Adobe will always give away the pdf Reader, but what if they charged for it? Would the market respond and come up with another free reader? What if Adobe made pdf files proprietary? There was a rumor in the ’90s that Microsoft would buy Adobe and fears that we’d have to pay them every time we wanted to distill a pdf.
Tip of the Day: If you ever do read a book in Adobe Reader, here’s how I make a bookmark. I create a shortcut to the file, leave it on the desktop, and rename the shortcut with the number of the page where I left off.
I Want MY DTV
- The roof antenna
- The “turn your wiring into a giant antenna” device
- An amplified indoor or fire escape antenna
- A screw in my alarm system
Believe or not, wedging the tip of the coax into the screw gave me the best signal strength. However, the only channels I could get were 5.1, 5.2 (simulcast of Channel 9) 25.1, 25.2 (traffic camera channel), and a low power religious station on digital channel 3.1. It’s going to be weird to see channel 3 in
One of the knocks against digital is the all-or-nothing feature of receiving the transmission: no more ghosts. Another knock is how hard it is to get a signal in a fringe area. I’m on the second floor of the southern end of a six-story building and that’s certainly a reason why I’m not getting much of a signal. I can’t help but recall that the old analog VHF TV signal could penetrate thick walls but UHF cannot. Many people who are ignoring this conversion and who don’t have satellite or cable are in for a shock come February 2009. There may be a mad dash to Radio Shack or Cablevision or Dish.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Blockbuster vs. Netflix
I was going to write about the ongoing JOHN ADAMS miniseries on HBO but decided to put that off and jot down a few thoughts on Blockbuster 
vs. Netflix.
vs. Netflix.
I’m a latecomer to the Peabody Award–winning series on the SciFi Channel, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. The show is in its fourth and final season. I watched the last few episodes of the previous season last week and I’m familiar with the series plot just by keeping up with show biz news in general. After seeing the Season 4 premiere, I went to Blockbuster to catch up and get Season 1 Disc 1. I watched it on the laptop with headphones. Great audio and video production values and probably the best acting ensemble in science fiction television with veteran thesps like Edward James Olmos (Cmdr. Adama) bringing up the perfs of the less experienced crew members.
Netflix has also come up with a new killer app, as if having what Blockbuster stores don’t carry isn’t enough. Now you can download a subset of their selections on your computer via streaming, with no waiting for the entire film to load or clog up your hard drive. I tried it out and the program crashed when I tried to go full-screen on RED DWARF 8. I had just loaded the viewer so perhaps a reboot will fix this problem.
I recalled banking online with Citibank in the early ‘90s, dialing via modem in terminal mode, accessing their computer with a 212 number, lightning fast response for the most part. As the years went on, Citibank never lost their lead in sophistication over the other banks’ online services. Ironically, the service was faster on text only, 28.8K modems than on any modern graphic-laden browser. It was a sad day when they discontinued Direct Access. The program fit on a single floppy.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Live Video Exclusives: The Giants' Victory Parade, St. Patrick's Day, Mom's Birthday
GIANTS VICTORY PARADE 2008Somehow the Giants' Victory Parade of 2008 took away some, but not all, of the stink of the Mets' "7, 17" collapse of 2007. I'm not even a Giant fan but as a Jet fan I was pulling for the Giants. This is a New York thing. The negative corollary is that a Met fan cannot root for the Yankees in the World Series.
At the column hed is a still pic and below is some live video shot from the corner of Broadway at Liberty. Sounds like a title for an M-G-M Navy musical. The still looks like a scene out of Mecca. On the sidewalks of lower Broadway, the Canyon of Heroes, are some very impressive names of people and groups for whom the city has held ticker tape parades. Lindbergh, Churchill, MacArthur, de Gaulle, the Apollo 8 astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. And Sammy Sosa. I wonder what the hell was going through Giuliani's sports-happy mind when he suggested this one? Hey Mayor Mike, is it too late to scrape the memorial plaque off the lower Broadway sidewalk?
ST. PATRICK"S DAY PARADEThe weather's been rotten in March but the skies cleared for St. Patrick's Day. I stood at 60th Street and environs facing Central Park in the late afternoon and noted that security was tight as usual. When you can't walk more than a few blocks without taking a detour down a side street, it helps control the crowd. The still pic is a salute to my friend Kerry and my brother Brendan.
The vid is "Anchors Aweigh" on bagpipes, although you're forgiven if you mistook it for a bagful of cats being run over. I like the bagpipes like I like reggae--too much of a good thing is bad for you.
MOM'S 89th
Finally, we celebrated Mom's 89th birthday this month. Like Old Man River, she just keeps rolling along. Her secret to longevity is that she has something to do everyday. Don't call Mom alert. It's an insult. Yeah, she may have ("may have" I say) slowed down an eighth of a step but if you talked to her on the phone today you'd hire her tomorrow to work a full five and a half day work week, like she used to do for Domino Sugar down on the waterfront back in the day. (Mom on left, Sis on right.)ADAMS PREVIEW
I signed on to HBO for the month so I could see the Adams miniseries. This went under the radar for me as I first heard of it recently from an ad on a bus shelter. I read the McCullough bio on which this is based and from what I've seen so far, HBO has done the near impossible--show life as it was, be historically accurate, and entertain the hell out of you. More on this next month.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Off-Broadway: ADD1NG MACH1NE
I’m not sure that you’d have to be a middle-aged man who’s been laid off at least once to get the first part of Add1ng Mach1ne, which opened last month at the Minetta Lane Theatre, but it helps. The last time I was laid off, the home office sent an officer of the firm to do it, apparently a legal nicety when a couple of people are getting canned at the same tine. The boss (the guy who hired me) was nowhere in sight. It seems to me that the guy who hired me should have been the one to show me the door, and that’s what happens in the musical Add1ng Mach1ne, based on a play by Elmer Rice.In the 1920s, Mr. Zero (Joel Hatch) is let go (’20s-talk for laid off) by the boss. Zero had been expecting a promotion from the position of hand-tally man to the front office after 25 years of service. The daily morning nag from his wife (the opening number “Something to Be Proud Of”), plus the revelation that an adding machine was taking his job, drives Zero to a murderous rage. He kills his boss and lands on Death Row on the way to Heaven, an afterlife that’s not what he expects or even wants.
Minor criticism: I had a problem with the accents of Mr. Zero and Mrs. Zero (Cyrilla Bear). Was it working-class American or Cockney? Mr. Zero maintains his accent when he sings but Mrs. Zero lapses into operatic pronunciation and sounds less of a nagging shrew.
There’s a very clever bit of staging in Scene 1, where we are looking down at the couple in bed. The bed is standing on its bottom and I wondered how they kept the covers looking natural but not falling down so to speak.
Elmer Rice wrote a scathing play about capitalism’s bosses but he’s not too crazy about the workers either. Jason Loewth and Joshua Schmidt’s libretto, with Schmidt’s often discordant music, evokes the rollicking 1920s with the dark mood of the1930s (the real 1930s, not the movie version). There’s welcome comic relief in the role of Daisy (Amy Warren), whose unrequited love for Mr. Zero is given flight in the gentle ballad “I’d Rather Watch You.”
Since most of the show is sung, if you don’t like musicals I wouldn’t recommend Add1ng Mach1ne. If you do want to spend a very fast 90 minutes at an entertaining expressionistic musical that could be a harbinger of the bleak times ahead (as Rice’s play was in 1923?), if this week’s Bailey Savings and Loan–like run on Bear Stearns is any indication, then go. This was a bargain at $28 (TDF tickets).
1 On the Town is back on the town. My employment prospects have picked up in the last few weeks and I hope to once again offer the reader reviews of the best in bargain theater. The downside is that the more I work the less time and energy I have to go out. Ah sweet mystery of life.
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