Monthly Archives: October 2006

A revised U.S. constitution for the War on Terror.

Nothing personal — you may be very cute, especially for a person who spends as much time on the Internet as you do — but baby pandas are cuter than you are. That's because baby pandas are cuter than anyone or anything. They're even cuter than me and, brother, you have to be pretty damn good to outcute me.

(I just had a funny idea that I'm not going to do. I was going to go to Wikipedia and if there isn't a page on "cute," I was going to start one. And then since anyone can post anything on Wikipedia, I was going to put a photo of me on it and then come back here and write something about how I'm so cute that if you look up "cute" on the Internet — and here, I would have provided the link — you see my picture. But I can't figure out how to post on Wikipedia and anyway, they'd just take it down in a day or so because they've never seen me and have no way of knowing how utterly factual and verifiable my cuteness is. It was a good idea, though.)

So where as I? Oh, yes. Baby pandas are appalling cute and that's all there is to it. I'm going to post more pictures of them here in the coming days. A few years ago, I discovered that whenever I posted a photo of Julie Newmar, I got a lot of donations from folks who clicked on links like the one below. Let's see if you people are more susceptible to baby pandas or if I'm going to have to resort to obvious sexual imagery and bring back Julie.

My all-time favorite TV situation comedy is The Dick Van Dyke Show and one of my favorite episodes (I have many) is "Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth," which was written by Sam Persky and Bill Denoff, and which originally aired on September 15, 1965 as the opener of the show's fifth and final season. It was the second one they filmed that season. Obviously, they knew how wonderful it was and moved it to the kick-off position.

You've all seen it but here's the set-up, just to remind you: Laura Petrie goes on TV game show. Unctuous host tricks her into blurting out that megastar (with mega-ego) Alan Brady wears a hairpiece and is, ergo, bald. Rob and Laura are paralyzed with fear that the vain Brady will not only fire Rob but perhaps also do physical damage to him and/or his loose-lipped spouse. Alan is also in a bad mood because he injured his foot. Laura decides to go to Alan's office in one of her Jackie Kennedy outfits and apologize and hope that he will forgive her and not kill them too much.

There are many things to note here. One is that Carl Reiner was quite willing to play a comedy star who wasn't particularly talented or nice. He was also willing to expose his own lack of follicles. A lot of fine performers wouldn't have done that. Another thing to note is that Dick Van Dyke was willing to hand over most of an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show to others…in this case, Reiner and Mary Tyler Moore. A lot of fine performers wouldn't have done that.

But the big thing to note is that the problem resolves itself in the way that most plots on the Van Dyke Show resolved themselves: Someone realizes he's being a jerk about something and decides to stop. That was not the norm for sitcoms of the day. Usually, things got resolved via a trick or someone saying to someone else, "I'm going to teach him/her a lesson." If they'd done this episode ten years earlier when every sitcom wanted to be I Love Lucy, it would have gone something like this…

Alan Brady is up for the lead in a big dramatic motion picture directed by some Big Name Director. In an early scene, we see Alan and the B.N.D. and realize how desperate Alan is for the job and we see how the director is almost convinced Alan's the guy…but not quite. Then Laura goes on the game show, loses (not wins) the refrigerator and on her way out, says what she says about the Brady baldness. Alan is livid, not only because his secret's out but because this will surely cost him the movie. Laura goes to apologize and Rob bursts in…and Alan is two seconds from killing the both of them. Then the director suddenly walks in and announces Alan has the part! Alan is thrilled but confused. "Didn't you hear? I'm bald!" The B.N.D. says, "Yes, that's what convinced me! I always saw this character as being bald and I wasn't going to cast you because of your hair. Also, it proves you can act because you did such a brilliant job of convincing everyone you had hair." Alan says, "Then you don't think I'd be an unsexy leading man because I'm bald?" And the director says, "Of course not," and shocks everyone by whipping off his own, hitherto-secret toupee. Everyone has a good laugh and Alan is so thrilled with how it all came out, he gives Rob a raise and buys Laura that refrigerator she didn't win on the stupid quiz show.

That's how it would have gone on some other show…Rob and Laura are saved, not because Alan learns anything or has any moment of human clarity or decency but because contrived plot details turn a disaster into a success. On The Dick Van Dyke Show, with the exception of a few episodes, plot contrivances didn't save the day and even when they did, they made someone realize he was being a jerk and decide to stop. People just acted more like you wish all people would…and they were even funnier for that. Someone deciding to stop being a jerk is the way most problems get resolved in real life — or at least in what I pass off as my real life.

So here's Alan Brady deciding to stop being a jerk. At least, about this one thing. The clip is a little over seven minutes but it's wonderful…

Stephen King on the life of a freelance writer.

The other day while driving in my car, I turned on the radio to get some news and got some Vin Scully instead. I guess the Dodgers games have been broadcast for some time on KFWB, nominally one of the local "all news" stations, but I never tuned into one before, by design or accident. In fact, it's probably been a good 40 years since I said, "Hey, let's see how the Dodgers are doing." My interest in baseball was short-lived and didn't extend past the Dodgers lineup that I knew as a kid: Maury Wills, Duke Snider, Willie Davis, Tommy Davis, Don Drysdale, a few other guys…and of course, the legendary Sandy Koufax. I could not name you one member of the current team roster if you had Mr. Koufax about to fire a knuckleball right at my crotch.

But you know what hasn't changed? Vin Scully. I listened to him for the rest of the drive and I enjoyed it so much. I didn't know or care who was playing, didn't care who scored however many runs. The man is just so much fun to listen to.

I remember going to Dodgers games with my father and sometimes, my Uncle Nate. We'd sit in the cheap seats and take along our transistor radios so we could listen to Vin. It wasn't a Dodgers game without Vin…and if you forgot your radio or your battery went dead, that was okay. Because everyone around you in the bleachers brought their radios so they could listen to the Old Redhead, as he sometimes called himself, and you could hear his play-by-play all over the stands. Amazing to realize that the Old Redhead is forty years older and still doing it.

I have a theory that there's going to come a day when baseball games and other athletic events will no longer be heard on radio. This day will not come until long after Mr. Scully has given up his microphone but it will come, I believe. The world is getting just too visual and demanding of the "total" experience in every media situation: Big screen, hi-def, high-tech audio, etc. People won't want to experience even a baseball game except in ideal conditions, and ideal conditions involve seeing it.

Not only that but I believe people of that era, whenever that era comes, won't understand how anyone could listen to baseball or some other athletic events on the radio. They'll say things like, "Let me see if I have this straight. You couldn't see the game so you just heard some guy tell you what was happening? Is that how it was? Did you enjoy your porn the same way? Some guy telling you what was going on?"

And you know how you'll convince them it wasn't insane to experience a baseball game that way? Play 'em a recording of Vin Scully. That's the only way they'll get it.

Here's a link to a new website you'll enjoy. It's a collection of memorabilia relating to Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields and other greats in the field of classic film comedy. Wish I had some of that stuff.

Our next "golden moment" from sitcom history originally aired October 30, 1978. It's from the underrated (and under-rerun) series, WKRP in Cincinnati, which detailed the bizarre goings-on at a radio station.

In the storyline, it's just before Thanksiving and the station's general manager, Arthur "Big Guy" Carlson, has come up with a promotional idea that will really put WKRP on the map. Let's cut to our reporter in the field, Les Nessman, for live coverage of this history-making event…

A friend of mine who must remain unidentified but who's in the thick of the Washington press scene wrote the following in response to my earlier musing and said it was okay if I shared it with you. And yes, I think there's irony somewhere in the fact that he's anonymous here as he writes about anonymous sources…

You're overthinking the question of whether Woodward changed his views or not. Woodward prides himself in not having any views of the subjects he covers. The only exception is that he cares about whether or not they're talking to Bob Woodward and telling Bob Woodward the truth. The thing that separates him from all other reporters is access. His sources are extraordinary. Everyone talks to him. People who swear on a stack of Bibles they don't talk to Bob Woodward talk to Bob Woodward. He takes it all down, sorts out the lies and self-serving b.s. according to the Bob Woodward b.s. meter, prints the rest and sells a million copies.

The key thing you're missing is that people talk to him. Is it true? Is it not true? Who knows? But it always came from a source that should know what he or she is talking about. If the portrait of Bush is that he's a cowardly jerk, it's because some insider whose opinion Woodward can't dismiss or ignore or disprove thinks Bush is a cowardly jerk. It's someone close to the man, someone who if he were quoted by name we'd all say "That means something if that guy says it." Only Woodward can't say who it is. The whole Deep Throat thing made his reputation as the guy who will always protect a source and honor background.

That sounds right to me. The image of Bush in Woodward's books has changed because he's now getting different stories and accounts from the people around Bush. It makes you wonder how many of them are the same people.

On a slight change of subject: One thing I've always wondered about in books and reporting of the Woodward variety is the "blind source" whose identity seems obvious. There are a lot of them in his work…in The Final Days, especially. For example, it seems obvious that Alexander Haig was a major source for the book. There are many scenes that could never had been reported if Haig had declined to speak with Bernstein and Woodward. Now, if you were to ask Woodstein about it, they'd say, "Sorry…can't divulge sources." But in this case, if Haig didn't talk to them for the book and provide the accounts that were the basis of those pages, the authors are guilty of deliberately conveying a false impression that he had.

I'm sure they would argue, "Well, we didn't say he did." But they sure led people to believe he did.

Then there's the scene in which Nixon and Henry Kissinger get down on their knees and pray together. Much dialogue is quoted, a lot of details are included. You figure it could only have come from someone who was there…but only Nixon and Kissinger were present, and they say in the introduction that Nixon refused to be interviewed for the book. Ergo, while Woodward and Bernstein are pointedly refusing to say that Kissinger was the source, they're also quite consciously leading everyone to believe that he was.

I have to go run an errand but I'll write more about this tomorrow if I have time. I'm not sure how I'd reconcile your view of Woodward, even though I suspect it is on-target, with what he did in his book about John Belushi. There, I think he interviewed all the right people and probably quoted them accurately…but ended up with a shallow, incomplete portrait of the world in which Belushi operated, if not of the man himself. It's almost like he assembled the right pieces into the wrong puzzle or something. And that was with sources who weren't anonymous.