Monday, December 27, 2010

Year-end Roundup: BLOODY BLODY, TRUE GRIT, Hooked on Netflix; THE EMPEROR OF MALADIES

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

1onthetown had a theatre companion this month for BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON. We've been talking about seeing this for awhile and when the closing notice was posted she ran out and got us two ducats on the aisle in front of the stage right speakers. The intimate Belasco Theatre Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre houses this rousing Guitar Hero bio of the seventh president. The eponymous lead as played by Benjamin Walker proves he can fill a theatre with his voice even without a mic. The incredibly cluttered stage makes scene changes easy as everything is already up there. I liked a lot of it except for the dotty lady in the wheelchair who narrates the first half of the proceedings.

This show started in L.A. in 2008 and there's a West coast TV sick humor sensibility that may have contributed to this show not catching on, such as jokes stretched paper thin and too long (for example, in the very beginning we suffer through the narrator wordlessly tooling around and around the stage in the electric wheelchair). The other negative is the effeminate depiction of Eastern political figures. Except for the rugged postures of Jackson and Calhoun, figures such as JQ Adams and Martin Van Buren are portrayed as foppish jackasses. I can accept that Andrew Jackson is bringing back sexypants but the other male characters were too Paul Lynde for this context.


TRUE GRIT

What does it take to get me off the couch and into a movie theatre?: a weekday afternoon and the Coen brothers teamed with Jeff Bridges making a movie out of the great Charles Portis's TRUE GRIT. But the real attraction is newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as the plucky miss out to avenge her father's murder by an ungrateful coward. I feel like Christopher Plummer giving you "Miss Daisy Clover" but I'm giving a money back guarantee based on her perf. She's real and the true grit of the title, with no phony 21st c. politics informing her acting.

Were the Coen Bros. joking by hiring a lookalike (Barry Pepper) for Robert Duvall to play the same part that Duvall played in the first version of TRUE GRIT? Oh brother!

HOOKED ON NETFLIX

I spent a good deal of week one of vacation watching DARIA on Netflix DVD, streaming Season 2 of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, and also streaming the cult classic TV show FIREFLY. So sad that we have hundreds of ST: TNG eps and only 14 FIREFLYs but I'm telling myself it's like watching 5 or 6 great movies. I read that 20% of Internet traffic from 8-10 pm is from Netflix streaming and that only 2% of their customers currently stream. When this catches on it may break the Internet. I was running the laptop thru the TV but my new BluRay player makes it a couch potato's dream. How did I miss FIREFLY during its run on FOX in the early 2000s?

THE EMPEROR OF MALADIES by Siddhartha Mukerjee

This book is subtitled "A History of Cancer" and is a good read if you've ever liked a science class or read science for leisure. Stay away if you're looking for humorous anecdotes. The author's vocabulary is excellent and I learned some new words, or at least one of those words that you see but can't ever remember its meaning: febrile.


That's it for 2010. I'm off to the farm, bringing the camera, and will have a full report in the new year.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Merry Christmas from Mel Tormé 3

Cre-a-k-k! The private vault is open again for Mel Tormé. This time it's New Year's Eve, 1987. Like Santa, he comes around every December and leaves all with a great feeling. Enjoy!!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Raw Nerve Touched: The Missed Opportunity of Sweeney Todd

I'm working on a book about Beer and one of the topics is Ale, which elicited a comment from my copy editor, and touched off some deep feelings I have about Sweeney Todd. I wrote about the movie in 2007, and some of those thoughts bubbled to the surface again today.



From: Jeff 
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 5:45 PM
To: Brian
Subject: Ale and Meat Pies
 
You saw the Cariou Sweeney Todd, no?
 
Ever see Cerveris/Lupone or Depp?
****************************************
 From: Brian
To: Jeff
Subject: RE: Ale and Meat Pies


 
Sadly no; no/yes.
 
I saw Dorothy Loudon and George Hearn. I have the Lupone/Hearn/NPH DVD. Hearn filled in for Bryn Terfel, whose chronic bad back made him unavailable. I saw the Lansbury/Hearn on VHS.
 
If you saw the Sondheim birthday tribute on PBS, Hearn has become the Bublé of Sweeneys. I mean that as a compliment. Hearn was/is an amazing artist at any age and killed at the birthday tribute. It was a privilege to see him in his prime.
 
I saw Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury on YouTube sing at a charity event in LA in the 2000s, where Cariou probably gave his last singing performance. Word on the street is that role killed his voice. What a way to go as Dean said.
 
Not crazy about paying four times as much to see ¼ as many performers playing cymbals between their knees while they sing and juggle. It’s the kind of thing that people convince themselves is good.
 
Depp: fantastic actor, craptastic singer. The director’s wife was awful. The gal who played Joanna—awful. Borat as Pirelli—very good. The kid playing the kid—novel idea to have a kid playing a kid. You don’t get a movie made of a musical unless you get Depp/Burton. Then you get a Burton movie, not Sondheim. If I recall the trailer, the music was second to the FX. It’s extortion. I hope to live long enough to see it done right on screen. Dream casting would have been Bryn Terfel and Bette Midler. We can only hope some 10-year-old is doing the grade school version and is vowing to do it right when he or she is all growed up.
 
Dorothy Loudon was one of those very talented people you’d see on TV in the 1960s, when you could turn on a talk/variety show after school and see Count Basie rap with Mike Douglas or Robert Q. Lewis. It was the golden age of free TV.
 

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Richard Pryor's Birthday Today

Richard would have been 70 today. I've never laughed as hard at anyone until the meteor that was Chappelle. Thanks again. You were the one-man Beatles of comedy.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Best Thanksgiving Ever

I cooked for 10 and made apple pie (DIY crust and filling). You can't ruin a Butterball. I also served glazed carrots and invented a green bean and small-potato (red and white) casserole. I believe I also made yams but a wild argument broke out over the difference between yams and sweet potatoes. Whatever it was, I added some sugar, pepper, and salt and all were pleased. I forgot to serve the cranberry sauce and applesauce but no one seemed to notice.

This year I saved all my vacation and personal time to take one week off at Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, and two weeks off at the end of the year. I'm visiting Lockie Lane Farms next month to visit my friend the sheep farmer and his wife. If the weather holds we're taking a hop over the border to Montreal.

There was a great 80th birthday tribute to Stephen Sondheim on PBS last week. I bought his biographical annotated collection of lyrics, FINISHING THE HAT, today at Border's at an outrageous 40% off thanks to an email coupon. They typeset and printed this coffee table book in the US and were able to keep the list price at $39.95. Imagine if you were alive in 1936 and were able to read a similar tome by George Gershwin. Truly a must read for anyone who loves the theatre.

Later in the afternoon I got a sweet deal on a Sony Blu-ray at Best Buy. Apropos of Ed Norton's question to Ralph Kramden, Why don't you have a TV?, to which Ralph replied, I'm waiting for 3D, this player can do 3D. All I need now is the TV (paraphrasing Sondheim).

Over the holiday I watched THE BEGGAR'S OPERA on DVD and read EUREKA by Jim Lehrer. Lehrer writes clean usually and I figured this was SFM (safe for Mom). However, Mom was shocked at some of the content. I read it after her and I can guess what she was aghast at (at one point a 59-year-old man has a few normal hetero fantasies about a young girl). She enjoyed Lord Larry Olivier in BEGGAR'S OPERA. (THREEPENNY OPERA reworked the same story with new music.)

One of the saddest things in the novel EUREKA is a reference to an interview with Anthony Hopkins in which he refers to his entire career as a waste of time. It's so depressing that I had to look it up. After that quote from 1999, IMDb lists 30 projects finished or in development so Hopkins was kidding or just having a bad day.

The Jets are 9-2 after Thanksgiving night! I'm pretty sure they have never been 9-2. Another thing to be thankful for: Mom bounced back from a few weeks in the hospital this year to play host to the Thanksgiving dinner. Margie found her a nice apartment in an elevator building. Mom gave us a scare and made me appreciate her more if that's possible. At one point in the hospital, when it was unclear what was wrong with her, she asked if we were thinking of putting her in a nursing home. That hurt but that's what uncertainty does to a person, makes them ask questions that hurt. It has all worked out ok so far, and is continuing to do so thanks to everybody helping out in their own ways. Like the little drummer boy with his humble gift, I make turkey drumsticks and apple pie and bring books and DVDs.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Brother Victor, OSF--Rest in Peace

My high school Algebra teacher, Brother Victor Fischer, OSF, died this week. Victor was a combination of the comic rage of Lewis Black and the good-natured cynicism of Victor Borge. 

After eight years of Catholic school nuns in Blessed Sacrament School, who knew you could laugh + learn in a classroom? Brother Victor had a line for every occasion. Some of the humor was bawdy, which was legal in an all-boys school in the '70s. For example, if a kid raised his hand and asked to go to the bathroom, Victor would retort, "Didn't you go already this year?" Another lad would raise his hand for the same thing and Victor would throw a rubber band at him telling him he could hold it. Then there was the boy who reported that his two quarters were missing. He was known forever by Victor as "the kid who lost the fifty cents." Or an especially nervous student he pegged "the nervous kid." One very hot day, several students broke the rule on no beverages in the classroom. Brother got very angry, seized the offending cans, and ran one over his forehead in sweet relief from the late spring Brooklyn haze.

Brother Victor was a positive influence on my brother who, like Victor, was a ham radio operator. Victor's callsign was WA2LML (We Are Two Little Meat Loaves). He taught my other brother too. The year the school went coed, my sister enrolled and he call out to her in the hall, "You're a Black [ed. note--that's our last name], right?" 

I got a 98 on the Algebra Regents exam, which we took in the Fall. I also did well in trigonometry in the Spring. When I went to college I majored in Math, no doubt due to the solid grounding in numbers and fun given to me by Brother Victor, OSF. Through several layoffs in the 2000s, the math degree has been something for me to fall back on and gets the foot in the door.



The following is courtesy of franciscanbrothers.org:
BROTHER VICTOR FISCHER, O.S.F.

James Fischer, son of George and Charlotte (Haiser) Fischer was born in Brooklyn on July 24, 1932.

After attending St. Leonard’s High School and St. Anthony’s Juniorate he entered the Franciscan Brothers on February 11, 1950.

He received the Franciscan habit and the Religious name “Victor” on August 2, 1950 and made his profession of vows two years later on July 26, 1952.

Brother Victor’s first assignment was to St. Leonard’s High School.  He was Business Manager at St. Francis College from 1956-1959 before returning to St. Leonard’s until 1963.

Brother Victor taught at St. Francis Prep, first in Brooklyn then in Fresh Meadows, from 1964 until 1978.  He was a member of the Mathematics Department and subsequently Chairman of the Business Department.

Beginning in 1979 Brother Victor served in a variety of ministries including three years in Pennsylvania and many years in the Archdiocese of New York at St. Jean Baptiste High School.

In spite of a severe hearing loss Brother Victor volunteered during his retirement years at several Brooklyn locations that included CHIPS (Christian Help in Park Slope) and St. Martin of Tours Parish.

On October 16, 2010, while out for a walk, Victor died as a result of injuries suffered in an accident.

He is survived by a sister, Catherine Mattison of Florida, a brother, William of Pennsylvania, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Who says you have to wait for Christmas to hear Standards on terrestrial radio?

You just have to wait until Sundays:
WNYC 93.9 FM
Jonathan Schwartz, Sat/Sun (Noon-4 pm); the Sunday show is simulcast on SiriusXM. The dean of Standards broadcasters, Schwartz champions the American Songbook. My only criticism is that he plays a lot of the same people and excludes other performers that the other Standards channels feature. Some high rotation artists are from his circle of friends; he could widen his horizons a little bit. When I turn on cable’s Music Choice, Singers and Swing, I hear a lot of the artists that he rarely plays, such as Steve Tyrell. Schwartz may find him unworthy somehow but should give Tyrell et al. a better shot.

Danny Stiles, Saturday night 8-10 pm, plays a lot of pre-stereo era 78s. It might be the timeslot or my own listening habits but I’ve never made Stiles appointment radio. It’s a mix of well-know tunes and lesser-known (to me) records from the ’40s to the ’80s. Yet it’s good to know he’s there.

WBGO 88.3 FM Michael Bourne: Singers Unlimited. Sunday 10-2. Fantastic show and it’s overlapped with Schwartz’s programs from 12-2 for 20 years. Perfection would move it to 8-noon or Saturday morning.

Don’t listen much to these stations but good to know they are there playing Standards:

WHLI 1100 AM daytimer 7 days.

WBAI 99.5 FM—David Kenney. Everything Old is New Again. Sunday 9-midnight.

WNYM 970 AM—Dick Robinson, American Standards by the Sea. Sunday midnight.

WFUV 90.7 The Big Broadcast with Rich Conaty. Sunday 8-midnight. Standards from the ’20s and ’30s.

WKRB 90.3 FM (Brooklyn)—Professor Ron Forman. Sweet Sounds. Sunday 5-7 pm.

WPHT 1210 AM (Philadelphia) Sid Mark. Friday night and Sunday morning with Sinatra.

Too bad WVIP-HD2 no longer simulcasts WVOX Music of Your Life (they dropped the HD2 signal in October). Sorry Signore Marconi, terrestrial lost another listener when I switched to their Internet stream at night.

When WNEW turned off the lights, Mark Simone celebrated the long run and didn’t cry over the end of the era. We can look at today as a silver age for Standards on the radio. What is striking is the decades of longevity of most of these hosts playing music that no one wants to hear. Classic music keeps you young.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

FREUD'S LAST SESSION; NYRMB

Listening to Mike and Therese doing Depravity's Rainbow tonight on WFMU. Mike's an old buddy. He and his cohost fill in for Tom Scharpling and the Best Show. He's the regular producer, call screener, and background kibitzer on that show.

I love radio. Here are a few of my recent posts on the NYRMB (New York Radio Message Board).




New Media Pitfalls



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Posted by Bob T. on September 21, 2010 at 10:08:10:
We hear so much about the takeover of new media stripping radio of younger audiences.
You-Tube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are so new that they really aren't battle tested.
This morning, news sites are full of info on a Twitter bug that apparently can takeover your computer with just a mouseover.
Can anyone come up with a similar weakness for radio?

Posted by Brian Black on September 21, 2010 at 15:44:58:
In Reply to: New Media Pitfalls posted by Bob T. on September 21, 2010 at 10:08:10:
If you mean technically, I have a portable HD radio that charges thru a mini USB. Something could crawl in with a firmware update.
Metaphorically, the mouse hanging over radio is everything online. When I run a Compaq thru a Sony tabletop I almost forget I'm not listening to broadcast; and it's that much less time listening to real radio.
Radio will always have the "I just want to turn it on" fans but now HD makes you wait for a buffer/rebuffer. Trivial? CFL bulbs (another enemy of AM) have run into similar resistance. We gave them away *free* to shareholders in a co-op and some users said it takes too long to get fully bright (less than 10 seconds!).
In summary, radio killed vaudeville, vaudeville came back as YouTube. Internet killed radio, radio can come back as something you can't get any more.
A step backwards to live and local news and deejays would be a start. Blogs are filling the gap for local news. When we had a shooting in our area, I turned to the neighborhood blog for street-level coverage that day, which was far superior to the newspaper, TV, or other Internet spaces the next day.

Why is AM 970 The Apple not doing better?




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Posted by Brian Black on September 14, 2010 at 10:50:22:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Why is AM 970 The Apple not doing better? posted by Frank on September 14, 2010 at 08:35:58:
The signal? It's usually a terrible listen in Brooklyn.
I stumbled into Dick Robinson's American Standards by the Sea after midnight Saturday night, the only show on 970 other than Curtis that I might listen to. American Standards's website lists The Apple but The Apple's own website doesn't show American Standards on the schedule. So 970's promotion dept./budget might be a problem too.

More Talk from Stern About His Plans




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Posted by Brian Black on September 10, 2010 at 10:24:23:
In Reply to: Re: Re: More Talk from Stern About His Plans posted by SKlein on September 10, 2010 at 09:18:07:
Stern is starting to sound like film/radio/TV legend Bud Abbott, who died broke with tax problems, who agreed with a reporter's remark that even if all the fans sent him a few bucks he'd still be broke. (It morphed into a story of Abbott begging fans for money.)
I bought XM to listen ($9/month) to Standards when they left terrestrial radio. But 7 bucks a month just for Stern? Maybe when everyone had cash to burn. He's dreaming or bluffing. I miss his show biz interviews and amazing insight into the business but I don't miss the poor taste.






Standards HD/Internet Radio Update; Bob Elliott interview




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Posted by Brian Black on August 31, 2010 at 11:19:52:
To update a post from last month, it appears that WVIP-HD3 is off the air. The WVOX simulcast, including Music of Your Life after 10 pm, was moved to HD2.
Another bright spot for Standards is Radio Deluxe with John Pizzarelli. The August 14 podcast featured a rare interview with radio icon Bob Elliott. A must listen for Bob & Ray fans; Pizzarelli is a hardcore fan of the boys.
http://www.johnpizzarelli.com/RadioDeluxe.html


Posted by Brian Black on September 01, 2010 at 10:33:41:
In Reply to: Re: Standards HD/Internet Radio Update; Bob Elliott interview posted by Pete Tauriello on August 31, 2010 at 22:27:53:
To begin to make HD a "must have" you would have to improve reception, sound, and content.
Audio quality: Berle sold pictures with sound and color shows sold color TV, but an HD signal doesn't improve the regular FM sound greatly to my ears. I have a Sony XDR-S3HD and a cell-phone sized Insignia portable.
Content: On the cheap, only a few listener-supported stations produce original local HD-only shows.
Buzz: I study the 21-53 demo (my house) and no one is interested except me. I love it for the niches. I heard Conway Twitty on WLTW-HD2 this morning but I also like some of the new stuff on WFUV-HD3, and appreciate the artist/title readouts. I like WNYC-HD2's simulcast of WQXR-HD1 (whose 105.9 signal isn't as strong as WNYC's HD2). I listen to Imus and Batchelor on WABC-HD3 without the static (WABC-AM in HD is gone). WBGO gives me a static-free lock that I never had before HD. I enjoy True Oldies on WPLJ-HD2 and occasionally dial up TONY on WCBS-HD2. I like the Sony dial for some reason instead of push buttons. Nostalgia?
Even if the content were improved, no one except the hobbyist wants to adjust an antenna. People freaked on the iPhone antenna problem when most radio folks would have DIY'd a solution (buy a cover). I listen via roof antenna or outdoors so I'm immune to the indoor reception problems, but I can hear it when I enter a building with the portable.

Nice FM DX catch Yesterday from NY




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Posted by Brian Black on August 30, 2010 at 09:55:19:
In Reply to: Re: Nice FM DX catch Yesterday from NY posted by Mike Grayeb on August 29, 2010 at 22:35:59:
On the Brooklyn shore, CT stations were blowing out most of the pirates too on Saturday, all the way up to WEBE 107.9, Westport. Made me wonder if I might hear those stations regularly sans pirates.

Out of context!




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Posted by Brian Black on August 14, 2010 at 09:37:18:
In Reply to: Out of context! posted by Walt on August 14, 2010 at 09:11:16:
Yes, there are two Simones and when the opinion show gets too Ann Colterish I spin the dial and turn it back later for his Saturday night music show. Yet when he books a superior point maker like Frank Rich, he tamps down the right-wing rhetoric, or ignores Rich's cogent point.
Imus told his listeners this in 1971: change the dial if you don't like it and I have followed his advice, even for shows of which I'm a fan.

FREUD'S LAST SESSION

I was going to write about this show but it wasn't all that interesting, a fictional meeting between C. S. Lewis and Freud in 1939. The acting was fine but the writing left me flat. Freud bests Lewis in their meeting in Freud's office. The set was beautiful--old books, a cathedral radio, the couch, small objets d'art. I saw the lead actor arrive walking his bike through the front door of the Y that houses the theatre (The New Little Theatre on W. 64th) but this did not shatter the illusion. Lovely little house.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Happy 100th Birthday Thomas Black

Dear Dad:

Happy 100th birthday. We spent a lot of time with Mom over the weekend doing little things to help her in her new apartment. One of the last times I saw you twenty-five years ago, you said to take care of her and I hope we're all doing a good job at that.

Any time we see anyone who emigrates to America, and talks her down because she's not perfect yet, I think of the patriotic Irishman who came here when he was 12, loved his new country, and worked two jobs on two phlebitic legs and a bum ticker to support a family of six. I never heard you complain much, except maybe to "stop that roughhousing" when the boys and I were fighting on the second floor. Sorry if we ever woke you up from a well-earned sleep.

your son,
Brian

Thursday, August 12, 2010

THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH--The Disappointment of the Summer on Starz on Netflix streaming

The movie of a favored novel is almost always disappointing but this one disappoints in so many ways. After you've seen Monty Python's version of the era, the buckets of blood approach is hard to take without snickering.

Let's look at the ingenue, Aliena. In the novel she first appears as a spoiled brat, daughter of a lord, who survives a brutal assault and impoverishment by the villain of the piece. She comes out of it hell-bent to survive and to avenge her executed father, but also to restore her family's place in the order of things. Capitalism saves her as she becomes a successful wool merchant. She flirts with the brooding younger-than-her Jack, the cathedral builder's stepson.

Jack wins her over slowly and gently with his modest demeanor, artistic temperament, storytelling, and a well-timed love ballad. Jack first kisses Aliena in the woods during a chaste encounter. Even though she is starting to fall for him, she latter rebuffs him in her spinning room, the villainous rape still in her mind. All this is well-plotted and understandable by the reader.

The miniseries: Aliena may make one snarky comment but you don't find yourself not liking her. The assault isn't anywhere as awful as in the book even with TV sensibilities factored in. The courtship of Aliena and Jack is missing. The worst part is the second kiss in the spinning room. In episode four we see Jack kiss Aliena and there is no rebuff. She looks like she's a little flushed, maybe a case of the vapors, but no rebuff. It is a critical moment in their rocky relationship because Jack can't understand why she is acting this way. He has no knowledge of the rape.

Instead of character development we have frequent battle scenes, of which the book has several. The technical methodology of cathedral building is interesting in the book and must have also been thought to be unfilmable, because I haven't seen it yet in the still-running series. There's a nice bit of line art animation (made me think of the Hubleys) of the cathedral in the opening credits and this could have been a nice touch as an exposition of the building plans as the architect describes it to the prior. As it stands, the overarching character of the piece, the great cathedral, is an afterthought to the blood and gore.

So how to film the backstory of well-drawn characters from a novel? There must be a way.

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Girl with Something Extra

"THE GIRL WITH..." trilogy by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson is a publishing phenomenon. The other day I was on the Q train with my daughter. I was reading the third installment of the trilogy on a Sony Touch, she was sitting on my right reading the second book and to my left a lady was reading the first, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO. I also just watched the Swedish movie of TATOO on Netflix streaming on my son's Wii.

Is any of it any good? The first book has an interesting plot: an old rich man hires a disgraced journalist, Mikael Bolmkvist, to uncover the mystery of his missing and assumed-dead niece. The most compelling character by a factor of 1000 is the Aspergerish hacker, Lisbeth Salander, who is hired to do a background check on the journalist and ends up investigating the missing niece. The hacker and journalist meet and forge a relationship of unconditional trust and loyalty, like Spenser and Hawk without the sexual tension (unless I've been misreading Robert B. Parker). The second novel is about international sex trafficking and the third novel's plot follows directly after the second opening with Lisbeth's recovery from trauma.

If you're going to read this, it's for Lisbeth's character. Over the course of the trilogy, she slowly grows out of her turtle shell, which accreted from a lifetime of abuse at the hands of her family and government spies and factotums, to become an involved human being. Mikael, on the other hand, is a young middle-aged schlub who jogs a little yet has the kinetic sexual energy of Elvis in 1959. He walks into a room and women are instantly smitten. His character never develops. Most of the other characters have no depth and sound alike in speech and attitude.

Is it worse writing than The DaVinci Code (which I read on the Rocket eBook in the early 2000s)? No, but this is a translation and it would be interesting to see what someone fluent in Swedish and English can make of the writing. The love scenes and post-coital talk are boring and clinical with failed attempts at irony. The amount of space devoted to making and drinking coffee, eating a pastry or sandwich, getting dressed, the color of outfits, and falling asleep are considerable.

The TATOO movie: I saved 12 bucks by watching the Netflix stream rather that going to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Like THE LORD OF THE RINGS, in which I lamented the lack of depiction of fellowship that is a charm of the series, this adaption stints on characterization. It's in the first book, subtle and a little charming between Mikael and Lisbeth, and Mikael and the rich man, less so in any of the other relationships depicted. There is a lot of technical detail in Mikael's detective work, such as the perusal of photographic archives, and this is depicted too fast and furiously in the movie, losing the revelelatory impact that his dogged work and analysis has in the novel.

The third novel (all three are on my ebook) is becoming incredibly difficult to finish, a real slog. Lisbeth, the eponymous heroine, is laid up and all of her action is from a convalescent bed. Not a great plotting decision. Supposedly there is a fourth novel, two-thirds complete at the time of the author's death. If it ever appears, one would hope for less keyboarding and more whupass from the heroine.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Jury Duty: Civil, Petit, Grand, and Beyond II; Ta Ka Di Ma at the AMNH

I was going to write about grand jury duty but just remembered that the proceedings are secret. I was able to write about the events of 30 years ago in the previous post because it was a public trial. Briefly, I will say that the experience was marked by a few luminous pearls connected by a string of intense tedium, making a token clerk's job look like intergalactic exploring. We listened, we deliberated, we voted.

Civil jury duty is one of the worst injuries ever suffered by the juror. I can speak from experience and from the many stories collected from fellow victims. A typical experience is:

Day 1: Wait most of the day in the Central Juror Room. Late in the afternoon, report to the court room for juror interviews.
Day 2: Get interviewed, be assigned to a jury.
Day 3: This may not be a consecutive day after Day 2 because the courts take more days off than Reagan. I once served in February and was stunned on Feb. 11 when the bailiff said he'd see us on the 13th. I don't think I'd had February 12* off since I was in grade school. When you report to Day 3, you are told that the case has been settled out of court, which is surprising the first time you hear it, but not after the tenth time. What's going on?

I sue you when I tripped on your stairs. You defend yourself and possibly file a countersuit. The court date approaches and a performance of chicken ballet begins. I start thinking I might not get as much as I asked for and you worry about losing your shirt. Your insurance company makes an offer. I don't like it and say let's go to trial. You say, see you in court! The jury is empaneled, we both blink, and a compromise is reached before the trial begins. Jurors time be damned and one considers that arbitration would be a better way to adjudicate most disputes.

THE SILK ROAD PROJECT at the AMNH

I've been spending most Sundays the last two months wishing it were football season. I've been enjoying playing Scrabble with my 91-year-old mother and cooking big Sunday dinners, but yesterday I went to the Museum of Natural History to see THE SILK ROAD PROJECT. An amazing serendipity was a performance at the exit of the exhibit by "percussion legend Glen Velez and rhythm-voice virtuoso Lori Cotler." He performed on frame drum and sang and she also did vocal improvisations. The audience was invited in one part to sing along, which most did with gusto. "Ta Ka Di Mi" was the title of the performance and the audience participation song.

Ms. Cotler was accompanied by Mr. Velez in a performance of the American Popular Standard "Imagination" by Van Heusen (music) and Burke (lyrics), possibly the first time the tune was given a Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Indian flavored musical twist.

The day was concluded with chili at the Old Town. My 2010 World Cup shirt elicited a comment from the bartender (who looks like Neil Flynn, Janitor from SCRUBS) and we had a discussion on US soccer. Business was way up more than usual this year for the World Cup and if we advanced one more round it would have been even better.
__________
* Lincoln's Birthday (actual)

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Jury Duty: Civil, Petit, Grand, and Beyond

I have served every kind of jury except Federal. It all began in 1977 when I was 20. Back then, most able-bodied men found a way to get out of jury duty, unlike 2010 where everyone from Giuliani to Obama to Mr. T is asked to report and serve.

Unless there is an existential threat and the enemy is marching up Flatbush Avenue (thanks to Chris Rock for establishing the standard of "when I would join the Army"), it is unlikely that 53-year-old men, even those of us who can knock off a 9-minute mile on a good day, will ever be asked by our government to help out in the future. So, when called to jury duty we serve gladly, if only in the knowledge that we're helping out someone else who can't spare the time.

In the summer of 1977, I served on a murder case with mostly young people like me, retirees, and a very few middle-aged people who were either civic minded or couldn't get out of it. The murder allegedly occurred within 10 blocks of my home. Normally one would think that the proximity of the crime to a juror was a disqualifier but the murder rate was very high in the late '70s, jurors in summer were desperately needed, and DQing us never came up. A second juror, a Spanish-speaking gentleman (more on that later), also came from our neighborhood.

The case was a drug deal gone bad in a kitchen with a half-dozen witnesses, all of whom but one (more on that later also) gave eyewitness testimony. One of the witnesses was a little boy, 10 years old. Another witness testified in Spanish. The judge, the colorful and late Justice Sybil Hart Cooper, a trailblazer for her gender in 1977, cautioned the Spanish-speaking juror to disregard the testimony that he heard in Spanish and only to deliberate on the testimony provided by the translator, a legal fiction at best.

All the witnesses had their say and and we were surprised that the ADA or the defense lawyer did not call the final witness to testify. As I paraphrase, the ADA said in his summation, "You're probably wondering why all the eyewitnesses to the crime except Mr. Jones [not his real name--1OTT, Summer Intern] were called to the stand. Well, you see, ahem, harrumph, brachk-brachk, this gentlemen is a transvestite, and I was concerned that he would show up in Your Honor's courtroom in full regalia and make a mockery of the proceedings." You have to recall that this was 1977. Phil Dohahue had only recently had gay folk on his talk show and the term LGBT had not yet been coined. We all nodded in agreement, imagining puppeteer Waylon Flowers and Madame sashaying across the courtroom with flair. Madame, by the way, has come out of retirement with a new partner.

I was the 13th juror and not called to deliberate. Two hours went by and I as the alternate waited in the courtroom in case a juror fell ill. No-nonsense Judge Cooper cracked out of earshot of the jury room, "I don't know what's taking them so long!" She eventually dismissed me and I'm pretty sure the accused was found guilty.

Next post: the grand jury.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

I Love My Gadgets--Sony ebook and Insignia portable HD radio

SONY EBOOK

I'm still enjoying the Sony Reader Touch. I've probably read more books in the last eight months than in any eight-month period since before there was a World Wide Web. Word on the street is that Dad may be getting a cool accessory for Fathers' Day tomorrow.

The titles I've read include Falling Man (DeLillo), The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End (Follett)--Pillars is soon to be a Starz mini-series (which I can watch on the Netflix Starz channel), His Last Bow [Sherlock Holmes] (Doyle)--from the Google library, Flags of Our Fathers (Bradley), The Guns of August (Tuchman)--gave up a little past the middle, the story was too hard to follow without large maps (sorry, tiny ebook screen).

And then there was The Phony Marine (Lehrer), Double Play (Parker), The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe (Smith), 13 Things That Don't Make Sense (Brooks), Gold Coast (Leonard), The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (Larsson)--the publishing phenomenon, I have the other two books in the trilogy already loaded in the ebook, Home (Julie Andrews' memoir)--I got this from the library and bought the paperback for Mom.

His Last Bow [Sherlock Holmes] (Doyle)--from the Google library: there were many OCR errors but still enjoyable to read, especially the eponymous title tale, where the boys are "surprisingly" revealed in the end to be two on the trail of German WWI saboteurs in England. It is a rare Holmes yarn written in the third person, because Watson's (spoiler alert) identity is revealed during the denouement.

INSIGNIA PORTABLE HD RADIO

An infinitesimal portion of the radio audience listens on public transportation. Thanks to my new Insignia HD Radio (FM only, no AM), I can listen to Imus in the Morning on WPLJ-HD3. The amount of electrical noise in a train has made AM radio reception problematic. Also, I'm enjoying Jeff Spurgeon and the morning crew on WQXR-FM, via WNYC-HD2. The regular QXR FM signal is on 105.9 and much harder to pull in than the powerful blast from the WNYC stick. I sent an amplified TV antenna to a friend's mother on the island, who could no longer pick up QXR when they switched from 96.3. It's sad to think how many people in the fringe areas were disenfranchised when this switch occurred.

HD radio isn't catching on, because it doesn't offer the correspondingly big leap in sound quality that HDTV provides in picture quality over standard TV. I was watching yesterday's 2-2 draw by the US against Slovenia, on the edge of my seat, and the picture quality was outstanding, if not the vuvuzela din.

The Insignia charges through the USB port of a computer; it is not an Internet device. It may be time to retire some of my old rechargeable batteries that used to feed the AM/FM radio. I bought a bunch for $90 years ago when the kids had constant need for them for video games devices. I've probably re-used them hundreds of times and saved boku bux.

Monday, June 7, 2010

HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL

I'm thoroughly enjoying the iconic TV series HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL on Netflix streaming. Tonight's episode from the first season tackled the subject of religious phonies imposing their mindless views on medicine on cowed cowardly cowpokes. The great Richard Boone as Paladin, with guest star June Lockhart as one of the first lady doctors, try to save a baby from a lynch mob. The God-besotted wagon master has diagnosed typhoid and has left the mother and the baby in the desert to die. Paladin wants to bring them in town to the doctor's office, to the displeasure of the townfolk.

Especially striking is Paladin's attitude toward the idea of a lady doctor. His attitude, other than a comment that she looks like she should be perched on a divan instead of serving these miserable townfolk, is 100% acceptance. Fast forward to 2010 and crap like GRAY'S ANATOMY, where underwear models of both genders masquerade as brain surgeons while having office sex, and you see that television has been in decline since 1957, the broadcast year of this episode. 
 The lyrics of the show's theme song:

Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man.
A knight without armor in a savage land.
His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind.
A soldier of fortune is the man called Paladin.

Paladin, Paladin
Where do you roam?
Paladin, Paladin,
Far, far from home.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Mjöllnir's Shame

Very disappointing costume shots from the new Thor movie.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=28049

I thought Barry Gibb was too old to play Thor.

IANA artist, but to show strength, you hold a hammer by the far end, sinews bursting under the weight. And the block is way out of proportion to the shaft. This looks more like a Will Ferrell parody. Where's the glory? Whoever designed the hammer and shot the pix has never held anything at arm's length heavier than a stylus.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Avenge Me, Boy

RED DAWN (1984) is one of my favorite movies (not to mention there is a similar novel by CM Kornbluth, NOT THIS AUGUST). The former is about a Soviet takeover and the latter about a joint Sino/Russo subjugation of the US. The final scenes of Kornbluth's novel still give me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Can a RED DAWN remake play today? I doubt it. As long as people are fed, have HD3DTV, and don't have to go to or send their sons to war, 21st c. consumers will reject this plot. Those who remember the 20th c., whom we used to call "citizens," might find this plot appealing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/red-dawn-remake-china

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Women's History Month: Ella, Kathryn Bigelow, Mom


Coming up: Ella in Hollywood: side 2. And congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow on winning the Oscar for THE HURT LOCKER. Maybe now we'll get more pix with real people instead of CGI? Nah.

Side 2
Nice Work If You Can Get It  Straight delivery...comfortable as an old hat...

I Can't Get Started  After the 1:00 mark, Ella gives it to someone talking in the audience saying, "Yak, yak, yak"...I'll bet whomever that was was glad it wasn't Sinatra or Tony Bennett...Bennett's autobio says he and a buddy worked over Don Rickles for an insult as Bennett walked into a club during Rickles' act (this was early in Rickles' career and Bennett claimed he didn't know this was Don's stock in trade)...

Give Me the Simple Life  Rollicking in under 2:00...followed by a swinging...

Caravan  Wide vocal range show, the high notes teasingly sound like she's thinking of scatting...but no...

The track One for My Baby opens with Ella referring to the last song she sang, remarking “They let me sing it this time.” She must have been hypersensitive to crowd noise or this was an above average boisterous audience. After a slow gallop dum-de dum-de countryish piano intro, a howl of recognition from one audience member is heard when she begins.

Lorelei is downright naughty, “that gal on the river…who had the goods and could deliver.” The audience hoots at the bridge when Ella declares, “this is where the striptease comes in!”

A-Tisket A-Tasket is Ella’s signature tune. The peppy intro of her contemporary Verve recording is familiar to us but apparently not yet to this audience and the entire audience is euphoric when they hear the first lyric. Later on, I dug when the band put down their instruments and sang in a call and response “so do we so do we so do we so do we so do we.” I’m thinking the style of Pennsylvania 6-5000 or Whatcha Know Joe. It doesn’t happen often but when it does it’s unexpected, like a hockey game breaking out at a boxing match. But no, once again, no one in the band can find that little yellow basket, lost in Ella’s first big hit (1938) and still lost in 1942 on a bus in “Ride ‘Em Cowboy” with Abbott and Costello. If you see it, let me know.


Coming soon: Witchcraft, Gone with the Wind
Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe, It's Delovely, The Lady is a Tramp, That Old Black Magic
 Lullaby of Birdland,  Ella Introduces the Band, Imagination, Blue Moon, Joe Williams' Blues

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Ella Fitzgerald: Twelve Nights in Hollywood


Memories of Ella:

Ella and Mel Tormé at the Grammys. The story goes that Ella's manager would not let her record with Mel, not wanting people to compare the two artists. How do you compare the incomparable?

 

One day I heard William B. Williams on WNEW-AM interviewing Ella Fitzgerald. "How are you Ella?" "I'm much better now that I'm talking to you Bill." Ella was recovering from surgery to remove her leg due to diabetes. Ella revealed in the interview that watching the soaps was one of her leisure time activities.
I heard an interview that musician André Previn conducted with Ella and the topic turned to musicianship. Ella said "Of course I'm not a musician..." and was stopped by Previn, who said, "then none of us are musicians."

ELLA FITZGERALD: TWELVE NIGHTS IN HOLLYWOOD

I'm listening to the next-to-last track of the 4-CD set and what a blast. Ella is riffing on fellow singers Sophie Tucker, Della Reese, Pearl Bailey. Just a lot of fun doing the old saw horse "Bill Bailey." And then she encores on the final track with...a commentary/reprise on the same Bill Bailey with impressions of Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington and...herself! Let's go back to the beginning and listen again.

The Crescendo emcee announces that Mort Sahl will be appearing soon; after Mort you'll see Errol Garner and that "sparkling new comedy personality" Dick Gregory. Ella comes out to do a breathless "Lover Come Back to Me" in 1:51 and a smooth "Too Close For Comfort." I don't know exactly if this was the same order as in her actual twelve nights. She slows it down with "Little White Lies" but picks up the mood again with "The Sunny Side of the Street" with topical references to being "rich like Frank Sinatra." [The real lyric is "rich like Rockefeller" and if I were singing it today I would say "rich like that Gates fellow."] It's amazing how many of these tracks clock in under two minutes, most under four. This was an era when a movie could tell a good story in under two hours.

This great collection is not a scatter's delight, if that's what you're looking for with Ella; but wait until "Perdido." Ella says they have a request for it but she sings that she doesn't know the lyrics. No biggie. She'll write them as she scats, joke through famous song titles, and call on Ella's fellas (the band) to wail and blow some "Perdido." She's all that, a bag of chips, and an ice cold Coke with an extended scat in the middle that you wish would never end. Even a little "Laura" shows up near the finish to make up for the lack of real lyrics. At this point you're glad she supposedly doesn't have or know the lyrics. This is pre-Google, the Mad Men era (May 1961) so it might have the added advantage of being true, as Kissinger said to Nixon.

Is it possible I'm only on the 10th of the 76 songs? Ella, if I'm ever feeling blue, this album will be my bad mood buster. It is a delight, a great introduction to the American Songbook for the uninitiated and a welcome addition to the music collections for lovers of beautiful music, created by a special lady.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Tavis Smiley on PBS

If I had a TV talk show I'd have on smart people and some laughs. Tavis Smiley, who follows Charlie Rose on PBS in New York, accomplishes this most nights from a studio in Los Angeles. It's not surprising he has a radio background because when I watch him, I'm taken back to an era when literate men ruled the AM radio waves, such as Barry Gray, Barry Farber, and Long John Nebel. Johnny Carson used to have authors on regularly and Travis carries on this tradition.

I caught up with a typical episode, from Cablevision On Demand. Tavis had on Joel Kotkin of Chapman University, author of THE NEXT HUNDRED MILLION. The book is an optimistic look at the population growth projected in the U.S. in the next forty years. Rather than the usual gloom and doom over our depleted resources and teeming cities, Kotkin noted the benefits of energy savings for a population that can increasingly work at home (I did it twice last week thanks to the Internets). He also said that working at home is great for parents and involvement with their children.

Improvements in farming have resulted in more open land; cities such as Detroit are depopulating. Kotkin pointed out that this creates more room for the extra population.

The social climate will also continue to improve. As an example, he cited a survey that showed that the attitudes toward interracial dating have changed from intolerance in all previous surveys to 90% tolerance in young people today.

Tavis's next guest was directory Garry Marshall, director of the new release VALENTINE'S DAY. He plugged the movie and also talked about his ubiqutous on cable classic, PRETTY WOMAN. This prosty-makes-good movie was the feelgood rom com of 1990.*

He told a story about going to see Martin Short's Broadway show. Marshall called the show and asked if he could get tickets for a Wednesday performance. "Wednesday is great," the voice on the phone told him. There was a bit in the show each night where Marty would notice a celebrity in the audience, then invite on stage for shtick. Marshall was asked if he would take part in the bit. "You must have a bigger celebrity than me," he said to the booker. The booker replied "Not on a Wednesday."

If you haven't seen Travis Smiley on PBS, give him a shot. If I see one more lame late-night bit where the host asks the director to roll a taped bit, I'll Elvis the screen. Turn off Jay, Dave, Conan, Jimmy, Jimmy, and the Seinfeld repeat and learn and laugh with this underrated throwback to good talk late at night. He asks smart questions, fawns sometimes, but with L.A.'s A-list guests it's forgivable, and lets the guest talk, never one-upping, or ruining the rhythm of a good storyteller.

__________
*Hector Elizondo was a standout as the concierge. Hector got off one of the all-time lines at an old Emmy awards show. He came out to the podium with Sam Waterston, and before reading out the nominees looked up at Sam and said, "I always wanted to work with Lincoln."

Saturday, February 13, 2010

DOUBLE PLAY by Robert B. Parker

I've been reading Robert B. Parker novles for a long time, going back to my Ur-blog, the Blackboard, in the late '90s to early '00s. I finally got around to reading DOUBLE PLAY from 2004, Parker's imagining of the job of Jackie Robinson's bodyguard in 1947, the year Jackie became the first modern-era African American MLBer for the Brooklyn Dodgers. There's a little bait-and-switch here if you think you're going to get much Jackie. Parker creates a character, Burke, and the third-person narrator gives us his backstory of a WWII Marine, recovering from martial and marital injuries, looking to make a living after the war. He is a trained rifleman. A sojourn as a boxer leads to another tough guy profession--bodyguard, and in the best noir tradition, to a rich man's nymphomaniacal daughter.

Word about Burke reaches Branch Rickey about two-fifths of the way into the novel and that's what I meant about the bait-and-switch. Once Jackie appears, he is not fully realized, but we do get enough to see that he was the one man who could have endured the viciousness. It's been reported many times but bears repeating: Rickey asked Robbie, for the first year in the bigs, not to fight back, to take every slur, insult, and object thrown at him. In this novel it includes bullets, so Rickey hires help.

Burke's emotional scars from a bad marriage heal from being around Jackie and family and a cause to fight for, and Jackie gets in Burke an unimpeachable ally, at a time when even some of his own teammates hate his Dodger blue guts. One wonders about his second year on the Dodgers and if the threats subsided in any way. Did the haters all call each other and move on to other interests, like keeping innocent black children from integrating school? How did they communicate with each other before FOX News and WABC talk radio? I digress.

The novel continues Parker's love of short chapters. His chapters and sentences got shorter and shorter as his career progressed. There are two quirky forms between the regular chapters, a series of interludes about his bad marriage titled "Pentimento," and several chapters each titled "Bobby," which read autobiographically about an older man's look back at his younger self, musing on race, love, and baseball.

The writing is too Spenserish. Phrases from Spenser novels populate this one, like Bobby's "Hubba hubba," or his Burke's wartime girl friend reflecting on the way he confronts the danger of battle, "But you do it."

The eBook experience: there are nine box scores included and they are hard to read on the eBook. The images are surrounded by a lot of white space and it makes enlarging and scrolling hard to do, but this may also be a fault of an insensitive scroll bar. Also, Box Score 4 is titled but the image is missing. I do book production for one of the world's oldest publishers and I'd hate to be the production editor who missed this. (I've done worse.)

You expect more out of the people you admire and I expected more from DOUBLE PLAY.

Postscript: The Daily News used to run an ad in the subway, a picture of Jackie Robinson riding the subway and reading the Daily News. It's impossible to imagine today. John Rocker of the Braves is the last recorded MLB subway passenger. My mother saw the Gas House gang take the train to the Polo Grounds to play the NY Giants, carrying their equipment. She went to Ladies Day with her mother and upgraded her ticket for a box seat, sitting not far from the Vanderbilts. There was a time when the richest people sat amongst us and professional athletes rode the subway. Today we have luxury boxes for the wealthy and big leaguers don't even have roommates any more.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Black History Month 2010

Welcome to the third annual Black History Month celebration. Let's open with last night's funky stylings of DJA-Rara, Bk's own Haitian rara band. Where can I buy a big horn like that?



Here are some other shots from the African Art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum's First Saturday in February 2010. I had hoped the bitter wind and cold would keep the crowd down but if anything even the coat check was marked "Full."















This month we're going to look at a novel by the late Robert B. Parker (it stinks to write that), DOUBLE PLAY, an imaginary scenario about Jackie Robinson's bodyguard in 1947. Then, there's a new album by Ella Fitzgerald, a live recording called TWELVE NIGHTS IN HOLLYWOOD that's causing a sensation. The worst thing I ever read about Ella was that she was too technically perfect.

And more... Stay logged in.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Sunday NY Times for 75 Cents; Robert B. Parker; Ricky Gervais joke of the day

You can't beat the Sunday NY Times for $0.75 on the Sony Ebook. Everything is there, almost (the Book Review w/o the Best Seller list), and I estimate it's the equal of a 300-350 page book. It's great for a lazy Sunday and train reading but unfortunate that the daily edition, also 75 cents, isn't available the night before. I don't have time to download it in the morning before I go to work and it's too late to read at night.

Robert B. Parker died last week. I'm a big fan and laughed when an early report noted that after he was found slumped over at his writing desk, "no foul play was suspected." Seemed like a tip of the hat to the writer of tough-guy detective yarns. R.I.P.

Ricky Gervais got off an oldie but goodie at the Golden Globes. Sipping from a beer which he nursed during the telecast, he said, "You know, I like a beer as much as the next man... ...unless that man is Mel Gibson. Come on out Mel!" After he waved him on, DUI Gibson did a few tasteless seconds of Foster Brooks.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I'm with Coco




Leno's ban (he blamed his producer) of guests who appeared with Dennis Miller, Arsenio, Dave et al. is coming home to roost. This may be the greatest media fall since Winchell or Godfrey.

"Coco" was given to Conan by funnyman and Oscar winner Tom Hanks. As soon as Hanks said it and led the audience in a rhythmic "Coco" clap, you could see Conan think, "oh, no, this is going to stick."

Letterman must hate Leno. I had thought it was an act but no, this is no Fred Allen/Jack Benny feud.

image courtesy Mike Mitchell
http://sirmikeofmitchell.com/