Musings of a Cynic

Don't Ban Tracy Morgan From TV. Ban America From Comedy Clubs.

2011-06-30T12:33:00.000-04:00

Hey, Offended America.. do you have a moment?

I deny neither your right to be offended by Mr. Morgan's use of the "R" word, nor your admirable desire to see that word disappear from common discourse.

But you walk a very dangerous line by calling for the head of a comic whose utterances were confined to a club stage. Comedy is not always about safely providing chuckles to the masses. Sometimes it's about walking the razor's edge between the safety of what is publicly said and rawness of what is privately thought, however wince-inducing those thoughts might be. Sometimes it's about rooting out absurdity via shock tactics.

Should rape jokes have no home on stage? What about the "N" word? Pedophilia? If so, then, by all means, let's also send brilliant comics like Louis CK, Chris Rock and Lewis Black into therapy as well.

The Plagues: Rated G

2010-04-01T08:24:00.007-04:00

While not a religious woman, my mother felt that the time was right to host a Passover Seder dinner for our family. It's appropriate, thought she, to give my children an understanding of some important Jewish traditions, whether we "believed" them or not. I agreed.

To give the event a bit of verisimilitude -- separating it from the standard-issue gorge fest that is most family meals -- she and my father lit candles, told the story of the holiday, served a huge meal sans hog or leavened bread, hid the matzah and asked the four questions (in short: why is this night different, why no bread, why bitter herbs, what's up with the double-dip?)

Of course, what would a celebration of Jewish heritage be without some discomfort? That came, with some level of intensity, in the form of the "Bag of Passover Enrichment Toys For Kids," which until that point had been unopened. What spilled out when the drawstring was pulled? Among other things:

The ten plagues finger puppets, one miniaturized catastrophe for every little finger

The "death of the first born" jigsaw puzzle, featuring a grieving Egyptian mother standing over her prone child

I don't know what's worse, the Old Testament barbarity or its Disneyfication.

Curiouser and Curiouser

2010-03-15T17:10:00.012-04:00

The new Alice in Wonderland is tedious, poorly staged and unimaginatively shot. In other words, it's another of many misfires from critics' darling Tim Burton. Burton typically has interesting ideas that are undone by his formal inadequacies as a director and a storyteller (among other problems, his scenes are never fluid, always relying on two-shot edits, and his films run on at least 20 minutes too long). But Alice is bereft even of any good ideas, unless you count his tweaking of the narrative from its original "journey of the innocent" to "return of the teen feminist." But even here, the title character is mostly a cipher, blandly reacting to the "wacky" supporting characters who are rendered mostly in cheap, jerky CGI. Worse, Burton's desperation to make the material more "edgy" leads him to paint every scene in grim palettes of grays and plums. Since 3D glasses tend to darken the frame by about 20%, everything is even muddier than intended. You used to at least be able to count on Burton for a florid, lovely-at-the-edges mise-en-scène. Not anymore. As for the rest Burton's oeuvre, it's pocked with similar sloppiness and unrealized possibilities. A closer look at two of his most celebrated films...

Edward Scissorhands.
Arguably Burton's most championed work, the film has a lot going for it. The cotton candy vision of suburbia was quite new in its time, before derivative crap like Cat in the Hat made it cliché. And Johnny Depp's performance remains the finest of his career -- innocence and loss perfectly realized in his pinched, silent-era expressions. Buster Keaton would be proud. But the critical giltterati chose to ignore the embarrassing final half hour in which the neighborhood bully, played with a fat layer of "must-rid-myself-of-16 Candles-awkwardness" ham by Anthony Michael Hall, gets in a deadly confrontation with Edward. All warmth and ingenuity are drained away as Burton hastily solves all problems with a standard-issue bad guy death. What a shame.

Batman.
This late 80s hit could have been so much better. Burton clearly wanted to get back to the darkness of Bob Kane's original comic book series. But he couldn't completely escape a fondness for the "POW! SPLAT!" campy essence of the 60s television series. The result was a confused mess (as opposed to Christopher Nolan's brilliant films with Christian Bale). Burton got things right with the casting of Michael Keaton and the fetid stench of Gotham City's police corruption. He got things wrong with Jack Nicholson, whose performance went squarely for the Burgess Meredith/Frank Gorshin paradigm. Still, the biggest problem with Batman remains Burton's biggest problem as a director. He cannot stage an action sequence, even a little bit. When Batman takes "flight" or chases down a villain, the scene demands a fluidity and elegance commensurate with Anton Furst's grand guignol production design. Unfortunately, Burton resorts to inset cuts (see Batman lifting off, cut to his feet landing) which effectively kills rhythm and detonates the main character's almost superhuman physicality.

I have far more hope for Burton's next film, Frankenweenie, an allegedly animated remake of his cute 1984 short film. Pure animation, as opposed to the hybrid mess of AIW, clearly relaxes Burton. In this world, where he started his career as a Disney concept artist, he finds the emotional fringes of his characters. That's why The Corpse Bride remains Burton's best work.

Sometimes, it takes the stroke of a pen and the tap of a computer to find the beat of a heart.

Regressive

2010-03-14T12:43:00.006-04:00

Every family has one. The "crazy aunt," now in her mid-40's but clinging to what's left of her youth like a whelping puppy to its mother's teet. Her attempts to appear physically and spiritually in her 20's take on tragic forms. She pitches her voice at a glass-cracking frequency to maintain an outwardly wacky joie de vivre that masks the budding desperation inside. Worst of all, she wears flame red lipstick and caked eyeshadow that would have seemed garish decades ago.

Apparently, the marketing whizzes at Progressive Car Insurance thought: that's our spokesperson!

Have you seen these irritating, ubiquitous spots? Set in an oddly Matrix-like "store," they feature clueless insurance "shoppers" who need the spastic guidance of Flo, the Progressive shopkeeper. Flo alternately educates, pumps up and gently chides them. But instead of comic warmth with an edge, Flo exudes screechy silliness...nothing more.

Even on their own terms, the Progressive commercials don't make a lot of sense. Consider the one where an increasingly excited customer shouts "yes!" after every discount benefit question. It ends with:

Flo: "Isn't getting discounts great?"
Customer: "YES!!!"
Flo (now taken aback by his enthusiasm): "There's no discount for agreeing with me."
Customer: "I got carried away."
Flo" "Happens to me all the time!"

What happens to you? You get carried away...errr... agreeing with yourself? If so, why admonish the customer's enthusiasm if you're guilty of it all the time? Flo (and her campaign) deserve to be dumped in the same advertising graveyard populated by Herb from Burger King and Joe Isuzu.

Nobody Cares

2010-03-07T11:38:00.011-05:00

Nobody cares about the "really weird" dream you had last night.
Dreams are completely random images and sounds caused by neuronal firings in the brain. In other words, they are surreal by definition. So, no, your dream was not different or interesting or “weird” (what a ghastly, unimaginative words that is). In fact, the only dream of note would be one steeped in normalcy. And, by the way, your dream also has no deep meaning…at least not in the banal “Intro to Psychology” way you think it does. In the mid-70s, the activation-synthesis scientific theory negated Freud’s ridiculous assumption that dreams are “subconscious wishes to be interpreted.” In the end, a tunnel is a tunnel, a flower is a flower and a murder is a murder.

Nobody cares about your status in FarmVille.
This game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops and trees, and raising livestock. I don't happen to play FarmVille. Know why? BECAUSE I'M NOT SEVEN YEARS OLD. Even worse than grown men and women playing pretend farm is the fact that they post their minute-by-minute pretend farm status. So in order to get to a worthwhile item on Facebook (few and far between anyway) I have to fight through dozens of messages like: "Deb just harvested her chicken coop and found some Treasured Golden Mystery Eggs, and wants to thank her friends for feeding the chickens!" and "Vicki noticed that her crops are a bit on the dry side because they haven't been fertilized yet!"

Playing children's game all day, eh Vicki? Can't imagine why your "crops" are dry.

Hardcourt Rituals

2010-03-05T12:36:00.004-05:00

Yes, the NBA's outside shooting continues its decades-long erosion thanks to the steady influx of high schoolers. Yes, the trash talking, shirt popping and chest pounding have grown to epidemically thuggish heights. But we'll save the social commentary for another day and, instead, focus on two much smaller NBA items -- rituals, if you will -- that are teeth-gnashingly irritating.

The Free Throw Gathering.
A player is fouled in the act of shooting. He goes to the "charity stripe." He shoots the first of two free throws. He either makes or misses the shot. Is the ball then immediately returned to him for the second shot? No. First, said shooter must be surrounded by his other four teammates who pat him on the head, back and ass, bump his fists and offer words of wisdom. Why? If the foulee misses the shot, does he really need to be somethered with rhythm-busting encouragement? If he makes it, are congratulations really in order? This is, after all, a completely uncontested, 15-foot shot that professional basketball players should make at an 80% clip. Enough already.

The Swatted Shot Celebration.
Need evidence that we're at the apex of the "look at me" era in sports? Look no further than the state of the blocked shot. There's no denying that the act is a thing of beauty -- stunning leaps, stretched limbs, halted ball trajectory. But here's the thing: unless the ball is secured afterward, the blocker has done his team virtually no favor at all. Bill Russell, the former Celtic great, probably blocked more shots than any other player in history (such records have only been kept since the 70s). But he definitely kept more blocks in play, thus giving his team possession of the ball. Today's shot blocking "specialists" are too enamored with the spectacle of the ball being swatted into the tenth row to worry about such trivial things. Who cares if the other team gets the ball back? I get to wag my finger, roar and watch the crowd salivate!

Battle won. War lost.

Skates + Death + Olympics = NBC Heaven

2010-02-25T12:55:00.009-05:00

When the mother of Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette died of a heart attack shortly after arriving in Vancouver to see her daughter's Olympic performance, you knew what was coming: epic pathos milking. And NBC did not disappoint. Consider:

Color analyst Sandra Bezic, the queen of pretentious over-enunciation, declaring that Ms. Rochette is both the "daughter of Canada" and the "daughter of the Olympics," is an "incomparably courageous soul," and "made magic on the ice." True, if magic involves double-footing multiple landings.
Scott Hamilton, whose voice registers higher than a shitzu's yelp, weeping his way through two days of analysis and stating that this performance was "not about medals." Please. The only way Ms. Rochette would not have earned a medal was if her routine involved urinating on the maple leaf flag.
Meredith Vieira, "View" yacker turned Today Show co-host, informing Ms. Rochette that her mother is "definitely smiling down upon [her]." Of course she isn't, for two reasons: 1) the dead do not "live on;" 2) if they did, abusive parents of skaters would still never smile, particularly when their daughters only earn bronze.

Here's an idea: instead of fetishizing death, NBC should, just once, give the public a brief education on the baffling difference between a salchow, toe loop, lutz and axel.

The Clinical Definition of "Sex Addiction"

2010-02-19T11:56:00.004-05:00

Being a male.

3rd Quarter Joy

2010-02-09T10:02:00.007-05:00

The most sublime moment of the Super Bowl telecast was not the successful outcome of Sean Payton's kamikaze onside kick call; it was not the sight of Drew Brees holding his bewildered, oddly named son, Baylen, aloft at the game's conclusion; it was not The Who's mix-master performance of "Pinball Baba O' Blue Eyes Fooled Again."

It was a commercial. From Google. And it is the best, most perfectly realized piece of television advertising in over a decade.

Consider the run of juvenile spots that surrounded Google's 3rd quarter oasis: castrated men, pantsless office workers, stunted beer drinkers, whorish women (thanks, GoDaddy.com) and, of course, tired anthropomorphism (fiddling beavers, vengeful dogs, talking flowers, screaming chickens). These derivative, desperate attempts at "entertainment" have only a passing connection to the products they represent, and, worse, wouldn't stand out on an average WB sitcom.

Now take a close look at Parisian Love, Google's brilliantly simple 60-second story. Yes, I said story. Because what Google does that's so revolutionary by today's bombastic, set-up/punchline standards is to convey a full narrative arc -- nothing less than the romantic life of a young, then not so young, man -- entirely through the use of its own search engine. And because there are no actors nor settings, we are drawn in even further to flesh out the story ourselves. That is advertising at its most elemental and beautiful.

Closed-Captioned For the Seeing Impaired

2009-11-18T10:21:00.002-05:00

As my beloved Philadelphia Eagles plod to their inexorably mediocre finish, I’m distressed that my travel schedule will force me to see most games on the televisions of our country’s bars and restaurants. It’s not the quality of the picture or the patrons that have me on edge (although both promise to be low-grade). It’s the closed-captioning.

Sure, when it comes to late night talk shows, sitcoms and hundreds of other programs whose currency is chatter, cc’ing is essential for our low-frequency friends. But why must we be subjected to chunky blocks of courier type dominating the screens of sporting events, for which visuals are everything? Since even the most bionic eared cannot hear the announcers at crowded eateries anyway, closed-captioning hurts everyone.

And, for the love of Christ, if we must endure closed-captioning, hire a stenographer! If I read one more “Touchtown!” or other typographical monstrosity, I’m hurling my bar nuts at the screen.

The Double Entendre Is Not the Funny Part

2009-10-27T22:00:00.004-04:00

Late last night, during a somnambulant round of Comcast channel surfing, I came across a movie called “Big and Hairy.” As it turned out, the title was not the funny, nor titillating, part.

“Big and Hairy,” I quickly learned, is a sub-mental, 1998 made-for-TV movie starring former Walton, Richard Thomas and featuring a character named Picasso Dewlap. So why bring up this relic, if not to snicker at its masturbatory title? Because, patient reader, the description of the movie turned out to be the most inadvertently hilarious bit of copy I’ve read in years. Here it is, word for word:

“A boy recruits a young Bigfoot onto his basketball team, with unforeseen consequences.”

This transcendent little sentence gave way to a cascade of questions:

Why was it only after Bigfoot joined the basketball team that “unforeseen” events occurred?
Wouldn’t unforeseen-moment-number-one be the mere presence of a 10-foot beast?
Don’t unforeseen consequences require a control group of seen consequences?
If so, where is the history of Sasquatch hardwood action from whence to draw comparisons?
In this vein, what could possibly be unforeseen – that he only pulled down 15 rebounds per game? That his outside shot was a bit flat?
Ultimately, wouldn’t the only unforeseen consequence be Bigfoot not ripping the limbs from every opposing player?

This Year's Overrated "It" Comedy

2009-07-02T08:28:00.011-04:00

An elderly man's lumpy, cellulite-ridden body. Three men getting tasered in the head and balls... by children! Characters endlessly screaming "We're fucked!" or, for a change of pace, "This is fucked!" (usually uttered by smug, charmless Bradley Cooper). The standard-issue categorization of women as Bellicose Shrews or Angelic Strippers. A swishy Chinese villain shouting broken-Engrish insults. (Race-baiting and homophobic stereotyping in a single character -- neat trick!)

For these and many other sub- 4th-grade delights, please see "The Hangover," directed by stunted hack Todd Phillips (also responsible for "Road Trip," "Starsky and Hutch" and "School for Scoundrels"). Even the laughs earned by the grandly original comic performance of Zach Galifianakis are curdled by the early admission of his character, Alan, that he "can't be within 200 yards of schools or Chuck E. Cheeses." Ick.

Only one part of "The Hangover" succeeds brilliantly, but you'll have to wait about 100 minutes to see it. An end-credits photo montage, filling in the characters' temporal blanks, reveals the circumstances by which a tiger, a baby, a run-in with Wayne Newton, a missing tooth, and other roofie-feuled mysteries came to be. What is so deeply, honestly funny about these still-lifes is the disparity between the maniacal joy of the moment and the inevitable next-morning comedown.

But more than that, photographs are the ultimate distillation of time, inviting the audience to quickly absorb and flesh out what is frozen before them. And, of course, rarely is the moving picture as funny as what's in our own heads. Particularly when that moving picture is "The Hangover."

Is That a "3" or a "B"?

2009-04-29T10:10:00.013-04:00

If the Internet has made our lives so much easier, why can I not order a pair of socks online without a PhD in Sanskrit?

The Allstate Prophet

2009-03-21T18:35:00.008-04:00

When asked about the death of Natasha Richardson last week, fellow actor Dennis Haysbert (best known as President David Palmer in the TV series "24") said the following:

"God doesn't give us anything we can't handle. It was her time. God called her home."

Once -- just once -- I'd like to see an interviewer question this kind of offensive, stone-age nonsense. Suggested follow-ups to the smug stentor:

1) What do you mean by “handle”? Wracked with grief for the rest of your life, but short of committing suicide? That kind of “handle”?

2) Do you think a false claim that Ms. Richardson is in an invisible house in the sky offers her young sons succor, particularly the one who was with her during her tragic fall?

3) Why have you become a shill for Allstate Insurance when, by your logic, there are no accidents... only God's plan?

Irony Exposed!

2009-02-09T17:13:00.012-05:00

"An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic ... don't you think?"
- Alanis Morisette

No, I don't.

While irony's precise meaning is difficult to pinpoint (and let's forget Socratic irony altogether), we can generally agree that it is marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent (literal) and intended meaning, whether in the form of a spoken phrase or a situation.

I bring Ms. Morisette's oldish song to the fore because it symbolizes the word's still rampant misuse. Just yesterday a colleague, referring to Thursday's plane crash in upstate New York, said "Ironic that one of the victims was a 9/11 widow." No, it is not ironic. There was no incongruity between an expectation of a reality and what actually happened. It is a coincidental shame that so much tragedy has been heaped upon one family, but far from ironic.

Similarly, a "black fly in your Chardonnay" is not within seven football fields of irony. The simplistic line is meant to cleverly juxtapose the third world and the refined. I suppose it does, in a seventh-grade-Intro-to-English-class way (see, student, if it landed in tap water it wouldn't have been such a cultural jolt!). But there's absolutely no contrast between surface and underlying meaning.

Now if I, a proud atheist, were to be struck and killed by lightning you could say that it's ironic. But since there is no God, and since all wise people know that lightning is caused by successive portions of air becoming a conductive discharge channel as the electrons and positive ions of air molecules are pulled away from each other and forced to flow in opposite directions, you'd be wrong again. So fuck off.

Those Carrots Sure Do Glisten!

2009-02-04T10:25:00.007-05:00

Armed with my new 60", 1080P, 100,000-1 contrast-ratio television, I was abuzz with the promise of heretofore unknown high-definition delights. Replay of the Super Bowl with its reds and blacks and fireworks popping? Documentary on the rain forest, every leaf and exoskeleton tactile? Fresh print of Citizen Kane, Greg Toland's deep-focus photography revealing even more secrets? Ah...there it was. The top category in Comcast's On-Demand menu: "HD Programs." One remote click away from a world of revelatory visuals. What would be at the top of the list?

Celebrity Rehab in HD.

That's right. Chief among your HD options is this ghastly pap masquerading as docu-healing. This country's yen for the Schadenfreude Channel (stocked with exploitive garbage like Home Makeover, American Idol and The Bachelor) is bad enough. Must we also have it served with the same clarity as the BBC's Planet Earth? Yes, you thought you saw Jeff Conaway's stomach contents, Gary Busey's darting-eyes and Steven Adler's drooping mouth before...

Where's a tube TV when you need one?

You're a Fool. Literally.

2009-01-30T19:29:00.009-05:00

On a recent Today Show, chirpy, self-loving weekend anchor Jenna Wolfe made, as the unintelligent often do, a verbal gaffe of inclusion. During one of those idiotic wildlife segments, Ms. Rose was holding a snake when the frightened reptile relieved itself on her arm. Her eloquent response: "Oh my God. It literally peed on me!"

Forget the breathless, teenage-like first part and pay close attention to her unfortunate use of the misunderstood and over-utilized adverb. "Literally" should never be used as a mere point of emphasis (it is not synonymous with "really"), nor as an intensive before a figurative expression (you can't say "I'm literally going to throw you to the wolves" unless you really are).

So, Ms. Wolfe, unless you were artfully contrasting what happened with novelistic, existential snake urination, you have blighted your show once again.

Utterances of the Damned

2009-01-23T11:21:00.008-05:00

* I don't have the bandwidth -- A perfectly fine word for the transmission capacity of electronic communications has been transmogrified into a business cliché for personal time. Even in its correct form the word has been dying since 2005, so the unoriginality is twice as acute. The next time a colleague complains of a lack of bandwidth, might I suggest that you engage in a little wordplay of your own. Tell them that, based on their bi-weekly trip to the Macaroni Grill, they have plenty of "band width."

* There you go -- This patronizing response to another's attempt at humor is the spoken equivalent to a pat on the head (and is usually accompanied by a preening smile and a "you-da-man!" finger point). Please, either serve up a full-throttle, white-lie laugh or have the honesty to level with your office's Pauly Shore about his lack of comic skills.

* Sooner, rather than later -- Are not the final three words strongly implied by the first? Indeed, a full 75% of this bizarre expression of urgency is unnecessary. Imagine the same cadence in other situations: "This coffee's too hot, rather than cold." "Pump me harder, rather than softer!" (Apologies -- I never miss a chance to paraphrase from the late-night Cinemax classic, Shaving Ryan's Privates.)

Adjectivally Challenged

2009-01-21T09:20:00.011-05:00

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
- Henry James

"The Dark Knight was awesome."
- Probably You

"Awesome" overkill started innocently, as part of the Valley zeitgeist of the early '80s. When Jeff Spicoli shouted "Awesome! Totally awesome!" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, his was a sincere, pot-fueled burst of exuberance, a West Coast bridge to the "groovy" legacy of the '70s. His character found a comically absurdist way of reforming Henry James's beauty-is-everywhere meaning. But now the word has been drained of its glory by millions of linguistically challenged mammals who carelessly flick it in front of every item or event that induces modest pleasure.

That which truly inspires awe? The Manhattan skyline. The Grand Canyon. The sea. Birth. That which should not? Most everything else, including an over-edited superhero sequel marked by a morose lead performance. I can guarantee that your meeting was not "awesome," nor was your burger, your coffee, your friend's joke or your child's crappy 1st grade play.

Banish These Practices

2009-01-08T13:50:00.016-05:00

* Feng Shui Consulting - Feng shui, the ancient bullshit art of arranging objects to facilitate positive "energy," has spawned that ubiquitous cottage industry: the consultant. That's right -- a few thousand dollars can earn you the services of people like Rodika Tchi (whose picture, below, is even more grating than her faux Far East moniker). According to her about.com bio, "Ms. Tchi has been feng shui consulting for numerous private residences and businesses for more than 10 years and has taught feng shui at the University of British Columbia." Taught? Feng Shui? At a University? I can only imagine their course offerings: Molecular Biology, Business Administration and The Art of Moving Your Couch Three Inches to the Left.

Rodika Tchi

* Dumping Gatorade on Winning Coaches - This annoying practice has been giving coaches hypothermia since 1985. (Sometimes worse. 72-year-old coach Coach George Allen died not long after his Long Beach State players dumped a bucket of ice-water on him following a season-ending victory.) Last year, Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers was even showered with the hideous substance on a basketball court. 1985 is the year that brought us such cultural touchstones as New Coke and Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time." Do we really want anything else from that era to survive?

* Saying "Knock Knock" Instead of Knocking - A knock is a socially acceptable auditory intrusion. Softly saying the words as you peek into my office does not reduce its impact. It is akin to poking a goose feather at my earlobe.

Comedy's Tragic Case of The Clap

2008-12-20T11:25:00.000-05:00

The irony of comedy is that the very manifestation of its appreciation -- applause -- is also its downfall.

In his NBC days, David Letterman exploded the borscht trappings of late night joke shows. His arch humor was entirely different than anything we'd seen before ("I don't mind the swelling, but I can't stand the itching") and the show let it breathe, never feeling the need to clog the proceedings with audience "energy." Indeed, my favorite recurring moment on "Late Night" was Letterman's reaction when a joke failed. His smile would broaden, his head would bob, and, often, a small, tenor-pitched "hee heeee" would escape his lips. It was almost as if he was honoring the proud comic history of failure. That wistful discomfort was its own joke and it was a great one.

Now the problem is not that the material isn't as fresh as it used to be (although it isn't), but that every joke, every bit, every utterance is quickly showered with lengthy, dutiful applause. When everything is sanctified, the genuinely good comic material, and, worse, the rhythm of a full routine, loses out.

But even the best late night comedy show on television -- "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" -- isn't immunized from the applause curse. Go ahead. Count how long the sycophantic clapping and whoo-whooing lasts after Stewart is introduced or after he introduces one of his correspondents. 45 seconds? A minute? Listen to the extra loud laughter and clapping ("I have to prove that I get it!") that follows, or even cuts into, a joke.

I'm not asking for silence. Just for the entertainees to allow the entertainers to earn their adulation once in awhile.

You're Uninteresting. Here's Proof.

2008-11-26T11:26:00.000-05:00

There are now 1.3 million unique monthly users of Twitter, the social networking site that allows you to let fortunate souls know what you’re doing at any given time. That number is dwarfed by the 120 million active users of Facebook, whose most popular feature is a Twitter-like window in which you can also inform your "friends" of your waking hours minutiae.

After studying this reality-TV-era phenomenon, I don’t know what’s worse...the stultifying banality of the posts themselves, or the fact that people now rush to the computer (or fire up the phone) to report every ass-picking moment of their lives.

Here’s a sampling of recent posts I encountered on Facebook (with names changed to protect the boring innocents):

* Joe is going downstairs for some sprinkles and ice cream – Would almost be charming if Joe had children.

* Alice fell down the stairs last night and sprained my ankle – Quite a shame that you didn’t sprain your typing fingers.

* Donna flipped a lot of pancakes this morning! – Really?! Was there syrup too??? How ‘bout butter???? Did you cook on a skillet or a frying pan?? Need…more….details!!!!

* Faith is wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! – Even the Muslims?

* Tom is loving the fact his fantasy football team went 10-1-1 and has a 1st rd bye in the playoffs – Checking injury reports during work, eh? Can unemployment be far behind?

* Dave is getting ready to hang Christmas decorations – Can’t wait to experience the garish magic of those porcelain angels.

* Bob is happy that Rutgers may actually go to a bowl game this year – Congrats on that Chia Pet Bowl birth. I’m sure the Florida Gators are devastated.

* Fred is happy that the deal in Switzerland was signed – Relax, jet-setter. Selling paper towels overseas doesn’t make you a business magnate.

* Rick is amazed how cold it has become in the Northeast – It’s late November. And the first part of your word "east" is “North.” 1 + 1 = cold.

Proposition Hate

2008-11-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

Transcript from the Vice-Presidential debate, which precluded the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California:

GWEN IFILL (Moderator):
Senator Biden, do you support granting same-sex benefits to couples?

JOE BIDEN:
Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.

It's what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.

IFILL:
Senator, do you support gay marriage?

BIDEN:
No.
_______________________________________________

The bizarre nature of that moment (effusive human rights defense followed by uni-syllabic dismissal) shows, once again, how political expediency trumps common decency. It also proves that religious hysteria is the vicious undertow to many of our civil issues.

Let us recount, and easily rebut, some of the “arguments” against gay marriage:

1) Marriage is about procreation.
By all means, let us ban marriage for infertile couples as well. Menopausal? You’re finished. Impotent? Sorry, Viagra Vick…no wife for you.

If you believe that those who cannot conceive children should not be denied the right to marriage, then why make a case against the gay population for the same reason? Further, it has been proven, time and time again, that children raised in gay households have no more difficulties -- in terms of sexual orientation or future success -- than those of heterosexual unions. According to Bureau of Census statistics, "twenty-five percent of children today are born out-of-wedlock to single women, mostly young, minority, and impoverished; half of all marriages end in divorce; and married couples with children now make up only twenty-six percent of United States households. It is unrealistic to pretend that children can only be successfully reared in an idealized concept of family, the product of nostalgia for a time long past." [Columbia Law Review, April 1999. (Social Norms and Judicial Decisionmaking: Examining the Role of Naratives in Same-Sex Adoption Cases. Lexis-Nexis 3/27/01).]

2) It is an affront to the institution of marriage.
That was the same argument made in support of the illegality of whites marrying blacks, and no right-minded person still stands by that ghastly vestige. And how often do we hear variations of this argument: "If we let a man marry a man, what's next? A man marrying a dog?" Marriage -- like slavery, a woman's right to vote, equal pay and so on -- was never on a slippery slope. It is on an evolutionary and righteous continuum. Besides, many a heterosexual marriage is an affront as well. Larry King, anyone?

3) The majority of Americans are against it.
True – the latest polls indicate that 61% of Americans do not favor gay marriage. But our government’s job is to protect the rights of all of us, including those that are gay, not to uphold the irrational prejudices of the masses, as California is doing in this case.

4) Being gay is a choice.
Right. Gay people want to be hated and ridiculed. No, science has made it quite clear that sexuality is innate. Simon LeVay indicated a clear difference in hypothamic structure between homosexual and heterosexual men. Dean Hamer, a Harvard trained geneticist, looked at 40 families with two gay brothers. Hamer and his team found evidence in 33 of the pairs for a genetically maternal influence in the determination of male homosexuality. Hundreds of other, agenda-less studies point in the same direction.

Nonetheless, I find that having to come up with a "no choice" argument is, in and of itself, offensive and patronizing (the poor gays...they can't help their deviant behavior). Would it be acceptable to discriminate against homosexuals if their orientation was a choice?

If you have to think twice before answering this question, shame on you and your fellow, Bible-enabled bigots.

Banish These Phrases

2008-09-17T08:50:00.001-04:00

* Stay hydrated -- I work with a number of "running enthusiasts" whose conversational palette is of the numbingly dull "minutes-per-mile/calories-burned/heart-rate/need-to-lose-another-2.25-pounds" variety. But it is only when they constanly blather about needing to "stay hydrated" that I get the urge to chew glass. Is the phrase "drink water" too jejune for the "sports science" set?

* Very unique -- Unique is an absolute, meaning one-of-a-kind. Therefore, the "very" is flat-out erroneous. The next time you attempt to qualify this perfectly solitary word, ask yourself a simple question: Would I say "extremely extreme?"

* Low hanging fruit -- This is the most offensive of the great business-cliché triumvirate ("thinking out of the box" and "thirty thousand foot view of the customer" being the others). In case you live in another orbit, the phrase refers to particularly "ripe" or easy opportunities. Unfortunately, it sounds like a clunky euphemism for elderly genitalia.

Is Less Candy More Fun?

2008-08-10T20:03:00.001-04:00

America’s candy manufacturers would have us believe that there is an inverse ratio of fun to size. How else to explain the pervasive “fun size” chocolate bar found in your grocery store? All but the most Gestapo-like fitness addicts know that the “fun size” is the opposite of fun; it is a sugar tease… a mere amuse bouche for the junk food set.

As you can see in the chart below, the percentage of fun rises dramatically as the package size (shown along the x-axis) increases.

White Collar Vulgarity

2008-08-03T02:51:00.000-04:00

“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”
-- Eric Hoffer (1902 – 1983), American Writer and Social Critic

Could it be that the prescient Mr. Hoffer saw clearly to the BlackBerry era?

My job as an ad agency Creative Director requires at least five live client presentations every month. Each one is the culmination of weeks of research, dozens of speculative designs, thousands of miles of cramped flights and countless forlorn nights in express hotels. But the theatricality of the show itself – the buzz of performance, the excitement of my audience, the knowledge that what I've crafted has genuinely resonated – fully trumps the foregoing discomfort.

Then it happens. One of the executives to whom I'm presenting casually unclips his or her digital brick, stares down and engages in the familiar thumb gyrations.

I’ll leave it to others to decry our social transition from tête-à-tête to tap-tap-tap. Mine is a more specific argument. I fully acknowledge that the BlackBerry (one of which I own, so don’t paint me as some digital-averse freak) is a remarkable tool, at once serving all inbound/outbound communication and entertainment needs. But its use in the aforementioned scenario is vulgar beyond compare. Worse still, it appears to be increasingly accepted as “the way business is today.” Is one hour of undivided attention too much to ask? Has the need to appear important overtaken basic civility?

Enough is enough.

The next time a busier-than-thou jerk looks down at their BlackBerry while you are presenting (or merely speaking in a smaller setting) I suggest three potential steps to forever eradicate their rudeness:

1) Without breaking your verbal stride, approach the offending party and stare directly at them.
2) If that doesn’t rouse them from their device torpor, stop talking altogether and see how long it takes for the silence to work its awkward magic.
3) If that still doesn’t do the trick, say the following in the most sickly polite manner: “I’m terribly sorry that our presentation has gotten in the way of your critical e-mail. Please let us know when you’ve finished and we’ll happily continue.”

Motivational Breach

2008-07-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

Littering the fishbowl landscape of your place of business is something far more insidious than cube farms, bad coffee or HR Directors who haven’t been laid since the Millard Fillmore administration.

It’s the ultimate pseudo-philosophical garbage, spun as panacea: motivational accessories.

You’ve seen them on the bookshelves and desktops of many an executive – plaques, prints, calendars, and, yes, even stuffed animals (“Reach for the Stars” plush starfish, anyone?) meant to “inspire.” One Web site, where you can buy these ghastly items, has even coined a cutesy-poo name for them: “Successories.” That’s right. Hallmark stock imagery + believe-it-and-it-will-come-true bunk = executive success!

One motivational print, simply called “Achievement,” shows a small group of healthy trees sitting at the pinnacle of a barren mountaintop. The quote underneath: “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” According to the Web site’s promotional copy, “In an act of sheer will, the trees achieve the unthinkable by thriving in this unlikely setting.”

Three problems: 1) Rocks are loaded with nutrients which readily allow trees to grow on their surface, so the act is hardly “unthinkable”; 2) Trees have no will, thus their growth has nothing to do with pluck; 3) Is there a soul on earth for whom these bromides actually work?

Imagine an insurance salesman aimlessly walking the halls of a monolithic company, lukewarm coffee in hand, halfway to his monthly quota. He approaches the “Achievement” print, recently encased in a faux mahogany frame, and is quickly mesmerized by its powerful balance of imagery and words. He’s suddenly filled with the urge to do his job with more passion and purpose than ever before. He wants to grow, dammit! And he knows that from this day forward, he will sell Medicare Supplement Insurance with the same verve that allowed a bonsai tree to take root on a sedimentary rock!

Sound realistic? I didn’t think so.

What is this cottage industry known as “motivation” anyway? Are we so infantile that we cannot glean enough motivation from the prospect of our paychecks or, better still, from the innate rewards that come with a little sweat?

But if all else fails, don't fret. The “Leap to Success” plush frog can be yours for only $5.99.

The Book of The Year Is...

2008-07-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

Standing Still, by Kelly Simmons.

This psychologically rich, achingly beautiful first novel is both a deeply satisfying meditation on crime, truth, matrimony and motherhood and a top-notch kidnapping thriller. Turn to any page and try not to find a moment of personal recogntion, crystallized in creamy prose. I dare you -- I double dare you -- to call this "chick lit."

I will avoid a story overview with the intense hope that you discover every ingenious machination of structure for yourself. Ms. Simmons writes with what can only be described as forensic elegance. Indeed, she could really teach the current crop of celebrated post-modern novelists a thing or two about narrative propulsion.

Click below to order.

http://www.amazon.com/Standing-Still-Novel-Kelly-Simmons/dp/0743289722/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216925523&sr=8-1

When Did This Happen?

2008-07-18T16:52:00.001-04:00

* When did "invite" become a noun? Are we so starved for time that four-syllable words have become too arduous? Warning: I will not respond when you ask me if I've received your "invite".

* When did "irregardless" stop causing offense? The prefix means "not"; the suffix, "without". The negation leads to "regard". Double negatives are bad enough. It is quite a trick to jam one into a single word. This crime of inclusion is oddly antonymous to the "invite" problem.

* When did "bad boy chefs" become popular? Perhaps the pertinent question is why? If your idea of a fun evening is watching a sweating, adenoidal jerk shriek "not enough basil!" then by all means, have at it. I, however, don't really need "edge" with my pancakes.

LOL RIP

2008-07-13T14:04:00.000-04:00

While the rise of online chat and text messaging (and syntactic idiocy) has led to an increase in febrile three-letter abbreviations, none are more grating than "LOL." This absurd sobriquet has exceeded, on the annoying-meter, such Joycean utterances as OMG and BFD. Why?

1) It's inescapable. LOL (which is not an acronym, as many people incorrectly assume, because it is does not serve as an accepted word like "RADAR" or "NASA") reached the exhaustion point within the first week of its inauguration. It is increasingly difficult to read a single electronic "dialog" without this three-lettered beast volleying between its neanderthal authors.

2) You are not actually laughing out loud. You have nothing literate to say in response to an amusing comment (and I'll bet it was quite the bon mot), therefore you resort to Pavlovian hackery. It has truly become the phony laugh-track of the digital age.

3) You are not 14. Yes, that is the "LOL" cut-off. If you are, heaven forbid, an adult in a business setting and you find yourself tapping out these letters (or, for that matter, writing "411" instead of "information"), please realize that yours is an empty existence.

Sins of the Flush

2008-07-07T08:17:00.000-04:00

In my 18 years as a professional writer, I've been exposed to enough spoonerisms ("A well-boiled icicle"), malaprops ("they vaseline back and forth"), split infinitives ("to boldly go"), and other verbal and written monstrosities ("let's look at it from a 360-degree angle," "your" vs. "you're," "I" versus "me," etc.) to keep the descendants of Strunk and White bathing in caviar for decades to come.

But nothing -- I mean nothing -- stokes my righteous indignation quite like the "flush out" versus "flesh out" mistake.

A common example: "We need to flush out that idea."

No, plebeian, that is decidedly incorrect. Unless the idea in question is hiding in a thicket, what it needs is to be fleshed out; meaning, given more detail or information. In other words, provided with more flesh to aid its bare-boned essence. When you flush something out, you are either teasing it out of hiding or ridding it via your subterranean pipes.

Stay tuned for my "irregardless" diatribe, coming next week.

Jockocracy: Part Deux

2008-06-26T20:45:00.000-04:00

Years ago, Howard Cosell derided a trend in television sports toward “jockocracy,” the awarding of broadcasting jobs to athletes who hadn’t earned them.

I thought about this neologism as I watched Mark Jackson, the ESPN "analyst" assigned to tonight's NBA draft, begin every sentence with the supremely unnecessary phrase, "When you talk about..."

"When you talk about the Chicago Bulls, they need a strong guard."

"When you talk about the state of the NBA, it has many reputation problems."

"When you talk about the first round, there's a lot of quality big men available."

So either he thinks that suppositions of guard needs, reputation problems and big-man availability only become fact when you talk about them, or he is ineloquent.

Occasionally, Mr. Jackson throws us a curve ball (or, in the parlance of the NBA, a verbal dime) by instead saying "When you look at..." Either way, this disregard for basic phraseology is an embarrassment to an occupation whose primary directive is communication.

But there are a few other, all-too-familiar problems with tonight's broadcast that have nothing to do with an overmatched neophyte:

* Stephen A. Smith. This lousy writer turned "personality" is ESPN's "angry" basketball pundit. Like Jackson, he does to language what a certain block of ice did to the Titanic. Unlike Jackson, who at least has a pleasant countenance, Stephen A, as he annoyingly deems himself, conjures up bullshit rage over the most innocuous subject.

* Twelve "Experts", One Desk. When did it become de rigueur to cram enough gasbags around the half-moon desk to form a minion? This has the dual effect of 1) giving each commentator no time to actually say anything; 2) reducing what they do say to a mere...

* Cliché-fest. Jeff Van Gundy, praising a coach, said, "His real value is stressing the right way to play basketball." As opposed to the 29 other coaches who stress the wrong way? Doris Burke, working the crowd, asked mothers of drafted players such probing questions as "Are you proud?" and "How do you feel?" I would have paid a king's ransom to hear just one mom reply, "After the hell he put me through, I feel relieved that his first pro check will pay for my new house."

A Critic Is Made, Not Born

2008-06-15T20:48:00.002-04:00

“With the Web, ANYONE can be a critic!”

A colleague recently made this stupid declaration as a rejoinder to my invocation of a witty, negative book review in The New Yorker. His point, I think, was that paid critics have no value anymore since everyone can now write posted reviews.

By this logic, my screwing in a light bulb entitles me to an union card from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Sadly, in our new digital age, any Middle Earth inhabitant with a computer is a self-proclaimed, and often accepted, writer/critic. But it is worth remembering that true arts critics – David Denby, Roger Ebert, Michiko Kakutani, Anthony Lane among them – care far more about the crafting of their own prose than serving up puerile “like it, don’t like it” proclamations. In fact, fine critical writing is best enjoyed after seeing or reading that which is reviewed, because its greatness lies in the ability to crystallize what makes a performance brilliant (or execrable) or to vividly describe an author’s unique narrative structure.

Contrast that with any of the “reviews” “written” by the cognitively challenged mammals on IMDB or Amazon.com or RottenTomatoes:

* From Paula’s review of Sex and the City: “I still prefer Hitchcock, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying what isn't.”

Forget the flailing sentence structure. The real touch of genius is, of course, the summoning of Hitchcock. Yes, like Sir Alfred, Michael Patrick King has directed a movie and he is a male mammal. Any other comparison is bizarre; as comically unnecessary as stating a preference of Tolstoy over James Patterson.

* Speaking of that literary titan, here’s some trenchant commentary by “SamRocks”: “So, I'm addicted to James Patterson. There are many mystery writers who are better, and some who are a lot worse. With Patterson, at least you know that you'll get a fast-paced, action-filled book without a lot of descriptions.”

For one named with such confidence and self-regard, Mr. “Rocks’” defense of his hero is decidedly weak-willed in three ways: 1) the petulant adverb “so” that kicks off his thick diatribe; 2) the admission that “many” are better but only “some” are a lot worse; 3) his pride in Patterson’s dismissal of something as unimportant as, ahem, descriptions. James Michener, eat your heart out.

* “Fubar’s” dramatic pre-review of The Incredible Hulk: “I don’t like to put the car before the horse but I think it will be really cool. Can’t wait!”
I’m guessing that the problem here is not a faulty “t” on the keyboard of Monsieur Fubar’s Commodore 64, nor is his an ironic commentary about the entire industrial/electronic age devouring the soul of our country. No, my hunch would be that this son of an idiot mother thinks that the phrase is as he has written. Meaning that he doesn’t read. Meaning that he also says things like “Don’t count your chickens before they’re cash” and “I did it in one felt tip swoop.”

One more aspect of this post that bears ridicule: the “Can’t wait!” exclamation. I have seen thousands of examples of this breathless nonsense. Your excitement about something yet to be seen is of absolutely no interest to me, and even less to the written-word archives. Please save your Batman salivation for your friends at the Auntie Anne’s stand.

* Finally, enjoy these two posts about The Godfather; one positive, one negative, each stunning in its illiteracy and surrealist logic:

Positive: “I've seen more than my fair share of Marlon Brando films, and in my opinion the character of Don Vito Corleone is this actor's signature role. Truly Oscar-worthy.”

In two short sentences, this “review” contains three unpardonable sins: 1) “In my opinion” is arguably the most unnecessary of all phrases. We know it’s your opinion. It’s certainly not that of James Joyce; 2) The contention that Corleone is Brando’s signature role is laughably obvious -- the world waits for your next bold assertion, sir; 3) Calling a performance “Oscar-worthy” is the equivalent of calling a book “good.” Writing about performance is difficult. That’s why hacks resort to the lazy shorthand of “Oscar-worthy.”

Compare that with David Denby’s description of Robert Downey Jr’s performance in Iron Man: “Downey, muttering to himself, ignores everyone else in the movie for as long as he can. Fixing his eyes, at last, on another character, he seems faintly annoyed that his privacy has been violated. Yet he delivers—to the camera, and to us. He can make offhandedness mesmerizing, even soulful; he passes through the key moments in this cloddish story as if he were ad-libbing his inner life.”

In just a few lines, Denby gets at the compelling smugness of this actor. No empty blather about Oscars. And since Oscar-winners include the likes of the hideous, caterwauling Jennifer Hudson, this would be faint praise anyway.

Negative: “When an ethnic group creates an underground crime organization we laud it in films and books, but when real gangs break out they are feared on Channel 5 news. Double standard, right?”

Wrong. Bad behavior is bad behavior. What we “laud” is the craft of the filmmaking, the finely nuanced screenplay, Gordon Willis’s Rembrantesque photography, the operatic but controlled performances, the lush yet unobtrusive score, the juxtaposition of family values and business means.

Then again, what did you expect from someone writing as “Monkey Stick”?

Data Paralysis

2008-06-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

On Saturday evening I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an acclaimed film about Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle Magazine whose sudden cerebro-vascular accident left him in a state of head-to-toe paralysis (referred to as “locked-in” syndrome). Bauby gradually learned to communicate using his left eyelid, the only part of his body over which he had any control. Eventually, using a communication code devised by his therapist, he was able to write a memoir of his struggle and triumph.

What makes the film uniquely fulfilling is its utter lack of sentimentality and its stirring beauty. Diving Bell was directed by Julian Schnabel who, throughout the 1980s, developed a neo-expressionist form of industrial art that alternates between the intimate and the grand, often within the same piece. He has stunningly transitioned this technique to Diving Bell. The early scenes are steadfastly shot from Bauby’s point-of-view. Only when he resolves to “release his mind” is the camera released, tracking over fields, meadows and food. More than anything, the film is a triumph of directorial vision.

**********

This all serves as background to the decidedly negative experience I had after returning the film. You see, I received Diving Bell through Blockbuster’s online membership. Their Web site, in its infinite wisdom, gave me three commensurate recommendations: Awakenings, Whose Life Is It Anyway? and The Elephant Man.

Great. So now I’m pegged as the paralysis/deformity movie lover.

In fact, Penny Marshal’s Awakenings is everything that Diving Bell isn’t, and I mean that in the most disparaging way. Robin Williams is in full “look-at-me-I’m-a-cuddly-bear” form. The score was written not in notes, but in dollops of syrup. And the “meaning” (See? We ALL need to be awakened from our daily stupor!) is an affront. Whose Life Is It Anyway? is redeemed by Richard Dreyfuss’s smart performance (the film was made about 10 years before he turned into a schticky caricature), but was directed with all the visual richness of an episode of General Hospital. David Lynch’s The Elephant Man has style to burn, but is a ready-for-prime-time version of his earlier Eraserhead.

Would it not make infinitely more sense to recommend other films directed by Schnabel, or, at least, directors of his ilk who tried their hand at making films in a foreign country? What about other films that shared the screenwriter? No, the fatheads who devised Blockbuster’s business rules have determined the single criterion by which I will judge a movie: level of infirmity.

The final insult occurred when I clicked “Recommendations” in their Web site’s main navigation. It led me to a page with 15 “we think you’ll like these” titles. They include The Chronicles of Narnia, which features a lion as Jesus Christ; The Green Mile, which features a black inmate as Jesus Christ; and Pay It Forward, which features Haley Joel Osment as Jesus Christ.

Hmmm...

Smells Opaque to Me

2008-05-26T09:08:00.001-04:00

While at a friend's home last weekend, I caught the unmistakably acrid scent of one of those ubiquitous Yankee candles. Following my nose to the restroom, I discovered the culprit: Midnight Pomegranate. Although it smelled (unlit, mind you) more like an Old West whorehouse than the sublime Persian fruit, it wasn't the olfactory assault that I found most offensive. It was the adjective. What, I ask you, would have been different about Noon or even Brunch Pomegranate?

Yes, yes...I'm well aware that our fine candle manufacturers are selling romance and emotion, not merely aroma. But allow me to list some other puzzling candle (oh, excuse me -- "aromatherapy") names. Find the romance in these:

* Fall Festival -- Ah, yes. The heady blend of cheap, oily carnival rides, junk food and human sweat (these torture marathons are typically run at the end of Summer).

* Ocean Water -- I can almost taste the salt and dead plankton now.

* Farmhouse Apple -- There's a reason apples are sprayed and processed before getting to your supermarket shelves: to purge the farmhouse manure.

* Velvet Petals -- Velvet? I'm sure you'd agree that nothing smells quite as delicious as tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed in a short, dense pile.

* Beach Walk -- Essence of sunburn, grit and chafing.

* Vanilla Lime -- Sweet bean plus tart citrus? Not since Roosevelt and Stalin has there been a less comfortable alliance.

* Wedding Day -- What exactly is the smell of broken dreams and deferred hope?

Tragedy Porn

2008-03-23T21:59:00.000-04:00

There may be no more horrifying teaser than, "Tonight -- a two-hour Extreme Home Makeover." This "wholesome" show, in which a freshly traumatized family wins an insta-McMansion, is actually a revolting display of "reality" TV at its most false...and exploitive.

Consider the poor sods who have lost their family matriarch, spawned a mental cripple, been denied payment for an amputated limb, or gotten screwed by the local contractor. Are they deserving of a new dwelling? Of course. But first, they must endure today's most insidious device: the on-camera confessional.

Go ahead. Count how long the EHM lens lingers on the quivering, melted faces of distraught family members choking out their pain. All the while ABC happily counts its Sears money, hoping that millions continue to watch at home, chewing their schadenfreude-flavored cud.

Arguably more painful to watch -- and certainly more painful to listen to -- is the show's raspy, shrieking ring-leader, Ty Pennington. This bullhorn-toting madman, who occasionally moonlights as a spokesperson for an ADD drug (isn't he a walking advertisement for its lack of efficacy?) flies around the construction site as if nails are in his nads. He goads. He prods. He cajoles. He cares, dammit! And, of course, he and his lovable crew speak in clichés by the pound about the "amazing" and "brave" people whom they serve with the piety of Jewish carpenters.

I am tired of the reflexive moral elevation patronizingly bestowed upon victims of circumstance. Sometimes, the dying aren't brave. They're just dying. And for that matter, most of us do not need to have suffering pressed into our collective cornea to gain "perspsective" (another popular bromide of Ty's witless builders). Life gives us a daily dose, thank you very much.

If the hacks behind Extreme Home Makeover were truly interested in filming reality, they would observe the grim faces of the neighbors slightly out of camera range (behind Ty's belching, ozone-destroying bus) as they wonder to what lengths they would go for seven plasma TVs.

Her Annoying Holiness

2008-03-15T10:01:00.000-04:00

Perhaps it is her perpetual invocation of “angels on earth.” Maybe it’s her honey chil’ patois fueled only by the presence of black guests. Possibly it’s her cameras-at-the-ready, “they need me” appearance at every international disaster (at least, the ones covered by ABC News). Or could it be her shameless, bug-eyed, bitten-by-rabid-squirrels studio audience?

For these and dozens of other reasons, Oprah must be sent away, camera-less, Steadman-less.

Living the Dream in the Big Apple

2008-03-09T18:23:00.001-04:00

You live in Coffeyville, Kansas. Save for the occasional dip into Oklahoma, you've never set foot outside of the state. But that is about to change.

You've gathered the requisite funds for a three-day stay in New York City. The possibilities are endless. But you have a dream that extends well beyond Broadway, the Met or the splendor of Central Park. Television is your muse. You were born for it. And though a neophyte, you head straight for the media mecca, Rockefeller Center.

It is raining, but you don't care. The ink on your pithy, home-crafted poster runs, but you don't care. Elbows are in your face, but you don't care. You are in the presence of Al Roker.

And so what if your fellow screaming cattle keep you slightly outside of Al's immediate orbit. So what if Matt Lauer's contract has a stay-inside-during-inclement-weather clause. So what if the on-air "talent" would sooner spit on you than share a dialogue when the cameras are off.

Clearly a quarter of your face was visible! And methinks your caterwauling about Bobby Sue's birthday was audible. Kudos to you. You've made the big-time.

This Just In...Local News Is Horrific

2008-02-18T16:07:00.000-05:00

While never the bellwether of journalistic insight, local news has, over the past several years, slipped into a desperate, infantilizing coma. It matters not the tricked-up studio, pimped-up Guy Smiley/Cheese Cake anchor team or ginned-up “you should know” topic…your local news is an embarrassment (and the horrors are affiliate-agnostic). Shall we count the ways?

Local Reaction Interviews.
Must every “report” on a murder, sports team loss or election be accompanied by the sub-human “opinion” of the troglodyte next door? When the Philadelphia Eagles lose, I’m actually a bit more interested in gaining insight from coaches who have studied thousands of hours of film than from Joe from Fishtown who spent the last four hours studying the bottom of a beer glass. And then there’s Mary, framed by the gauzy sheen of her screen door, professing surprise that her neighbor was decapitated, “particularly around the holidays.” Really, Mary? Would have been the normal course of business if it happened, say, in April?

The Special Investigation Team.
The glowering looks. The leather jackets. The brick wall background. Yes, this must be the can’t-chain-‘em-to-no-desk special investigation team. They’re walking the beat to root out scofflaws from Ninth Street to Tenth. And if they can’t find any real corruption, they’ll talk a tough game and gussy up drama with grainy videography and whip-pan camera work.

Transitional Banter.
After Jock Itch Joe finishes his sports report, Annie Anchor does not posses the internal fortitude to simply thank him and move on. No, she needs to engage in schoolgirl “reaction dialogue” along the heady order of “Wow, Joe, that hit looked painful!” or “Awww….better luck next time for our team!” This elicits some convivial but uni-syllabic grunt (hardly surprising that extemporaneous wit isn’t the province of lobotomized news personalities), and the cycle goes on.

Weather Coverage.
This category is worth its own multi-page blog entry, but I’ll try to condense the inanity to a few sub-categories:

1) Good weather gratitude. Our jovial “meteorologist” (try getting a degree in that from Harvard) is swathed in “thank you’s” for reading a sunny forecast, much like the 16th century shamans were honored for the patterns of the sun, rain and wind.

2) “Wacky” weatherperson names. Philadelphia has its Hurricane Schwartz; New York has its Storm Fields. Recent events have forced Tsunami Sam to rethink his moniker. Stage names certainly have value for heretofore-unknown actors, relying on the patina of notoriety. But weatherpersons? What exactly is to be served by treating viewers like a cluster of three-year-olds watching characters in Romper Room? (At least Hurricane’s shamelessness didn’t extend to de-ethnicizing his last name.)

3) Bread, milk and salt. In Philadelphia, three inches of potential snow is all it takes to generate state-of-emergency coverage, complete with shots of parked salt trucks, bread and milk aisles, empty racks of snow shovels and other stock footage dredged from prehistoric amber.

4) Seven reporters, Seven miles. During a snow “storm” your local news station bizarrely deploys a multitude of reporters to towns all within a seven mile radius. Turns out, the road conditions are…the same! The snowfall amounts are…the same! And, of course, what roving reporter’s dispatch would be complete without the studio-bound anchor beseeching him or her, with faux sincerity, to “get inside where it’s warm!”? Hey – I didn’t ask Suzie to “brave” the elements, but if frostbite ensues, I’ll at least get a modicum of real news (and entertainment).

5) Tips on beating the heat, useful for those in the womb. Every time the thermometer flirts with the 90° mark, we have to endure such brain-dead “tips” as “don’t wear black,” “get near an open window, or, better yet, seek air conditioning,” and “stay hydrated.” This sage advice is often accompanied by shots of ugly children sucking down ice cream cones. It is to die.

Two Words Even More Irritating Than "Wintry Mix"

2008-02-13T18:33:00.000-05:00

Has there ever been a more specious phrase than "soul mate"?

Smacking of provincial fatalism, it combines, in equally absurd spoonfuls, hothouse teenage drama ("Now and forever, Thad, we are soul mates!") and desperate religious justification ("A higher power has blessed us each with a soul...each of which has but a single, perfect mate!"). The reality of the "soul" is, of course, as patently absurd as any of the poorly written parables and lessons found in your local hotel room's night table.

The intellectually honest will readily admit that no matter how fine the state of their marriage or partnership, there's a lovely person in Dubuque, Iowa, Quebec City, Canada, or Damascus, Syria with whom they are at least as compatible.

The "Hero" Horse Who Died For Our Sins

2008-02-10T13:47:00.000-05:00

Recently, America's news media breathlessly celebrated the one year anniversary of the death of Barbaro, Preakness-crippled equine. It brought back horrid memories, not of the undeniably sad leg breakage, but of the childish coverage of Barbaro's cruelly-lengthened life. The best line may have been from the Philadelphia Inquirer the day after his life was mercifully ended: "Barbaro fought like a champion until the very end.”

Really? How, precisely, did they know that? Unless I'm mistaken, Barbaro possessed no opposable thumbs nor the ability to speak any particular dialect, in which case he would have certainly expelled a bullet into his own head or asked his "caretakers" to do the same.

The public deserves blame as well, bizarrely showering the gates of Rancho Barbaro with plastic flowers and school-sanctioned letters from children, never to be sniffed or read.

When the Otherwise Sensible Go Dim

2008-02-09T10:16:00.000-05:00

"Fate." "Meant to be."

When you hear this bizarre collection of words, run far away. They are all part of the dim legacy of our ancient ancestors, whose cognitive infancy lives on. Here's a perfect example of how the contemplative abilities of otherwise bright people turn to mush...

I once told a well-educated colleague about a particularly striking event in a football game. During one play, the tight-end caught a sideline pass, the trajectory of which forced him out of bounds. Before he could stop, he barreled into an elderly assistant coach whose head crashed to the turf. Knocked unconscious, the coach was rushed to the hospital where he received head x-rays to check the severity of the damage. Although he was only diagnosed with a concussion, one scan revealed a small spot that turned out to be a malignant brain tumor. It was removed. He's now cancer free.

As I told my colleague this bizarre story, I couldn't help but notice his slow, purposeful nodding and increasingly glazed, Magic Kingdom smile. At the story's conclusion he said, “See? It was meant to happen.”

Puzzled, I asked, "What exactly was meant to happen?”

"The play. If that didn’t happen he would have been dead. It was fate.”

To which I said, "Let me see if I'm perfectly clear. 1) God arranged for the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs to slightly overthrow his intended receiver on a tight-end crossing pattern so that he would smash into the poor gentleman; 2) God caused the force of the collision to give the man a concussion [which, by the way, forced him to retire early from the game he loved]; so that 3) the tumor -- which was presumably put there by God -- could be discovered?"

“No, no, no....God didn’t give him the tumor. He led him to recovery.”

"And 'He' couldn’t have simply whispered something subtle like 'You have a brain tumor!' or have spelled out the imminent head injury in the coach's alphabet soup?"

My colleague ignored the question and finished the dialogue with, "And his doctor was also given the gift of practice."

A perfect microcosm of idiocy in action, yes?. In this world, a fortunate coincidence is God's work. A tragedy is too, but its ultimate meaning will be "revealed" later. Faith loopholes are endless. "Meant-to-be" moments are cherry-picked like the non- stoning/slavery/murdering sections of the bible (which are few and far between). And what precise value does prayer have when things are pre-determined? Can slapping our palms together really influence events in such a place?

What's most dispiriting about all of this fate nonsense is that it nullifies our responsibilities, our individual glories, our critical faculties. What could be more "unholy" than that?

Would Shakespeare Approve?

2008-02-06T08:05:00.000-05:00

In just the past week, I've been in the company of no fewer than three people who described someone or something as being "gi-normous." This distasteful, linguistic mash-up is maddening in two ways:

1) Blending "giant" and "enormous" does NOT create a new plateau of hugeness, nor does it shorten a burdensome, multi-syllabic word (which, in itself, is a loathsome practice).

2) It has the creepy essence of a child's mispronounciation. Perfectly understandable for a youth whose formative years are spent fumbling toward Webster's master word list; deeply unsettling when "enlightened" adults run away.

"Spiritual?" No, You Just Like Granola.

2008-02-02T10:32:00.000-05:00

Ever hear this chestnut? "I'm not religious, but I am spiritual."

What exactly is that? A catch-all term for those who skip church but shed tears during Titanic? Who never keep kosher but do admire sapling trees?

I'm an avowed atheist, yet part of me prefers the slack-jawed honesty of the "faithful" to the inane prattling of those who would have it both ways.

What's Next? Cloud-Ripened Rain?

2008-01-26T14:58:00.000-05:00

In its latest advertising campaign, the putrid chain, Olive Garden, tries to impress the great unwashed (and apparently unfed) by bragging that its "chefs" "cook" with "vine-ripened" tomatoes. As opposed to what, precisely? Space-ripened? Magma-ripened?

It's bad enough that the typical OG meal tastes like day-old scrapings from a Stouffer's microwave casserole. But this faux gourmand messaging is the last straw... a cynical attempt to cash in on the myth of their adherence to quality ingredients and searing skill.

(But please try the pie. It's studded with tree-grown apples!)