Sunday, July 4, 2004

Rocker Nominee

Since they will eventually dig up every single thing John Kerry has ever done, you might as well know this now: He was once in a rock band. Jerry Osborne has all the details, including a photo and the cover of their one album, at his weblog. (Thanks, Phil Conley!)

• Posted at 2:41 PM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

Dick Cheney is out there bashing John Kerry as being "on the left, out of the mainstream and out of touch with the conservative values of the heartland." I suspect there's some truth to that with regard to some values.

On the other hand, I'd like to see someone ask Cheney about some other values. Going off to defend America in a war versus escaping the draft via deferments because you had "other priorities," for example. I escaped the draft myself (high lottery number) and never felt there was anything wrong with that. But when it was Clinton against Dole, it was the guy in the uniform who supposedly represented the values of the heartland, and I don't think anything's changed now except which one is the Democrat and which one is the Republican.

Cheney also seems to love companies like Wal-Mart as a model of how American business should operate. Wal-Mart has done a good job of moving into a town, driving the small merchants (the "Mom and Pop" shops) into insolvency, then lowering the general wage scale of an area. Oh, yeah — and they no longer cling to Sam Walton's once-expressed goal of trying to keep manufacturing jobs in America. We all love lower prices, which Wal-Mart is sometimes able to deliver, but I don't think they consider that a perfect trade-off in the heartlands.

And there are an awful lot of allegations about the Iraq War — lying, profiteering, human rights violations, poor strategizing, etc. — that I don't think are much exalted anywhere in the country. Nor is running up a massive deficit or causing former allies to hate us.

I sure hope Kerry and his running mate, whoever it is, don't get caught up in the game of defending the right to burn the flag. I'd much rather see them assert that doing right by the nation and its people is a value that trumps those "red meat" issues. Dukakis (and to some extent, Gore) made the mistake of going on the defense about their faith and patriotism and courage. In one debate, Joe Lieberman stood there like Venus De Milo, saying nothing as Cheney asserted he'd never made a dime off the government. If the Democrats play it that way again, they deserve to lose. And they will.

• Posted at 12:53 PM · LINK

About Al Hartley...

It doesn't get much mention in the "mainstream" comic book community but there's a thriving world out there of Christian-oriented comic books. My pal Nate Butler maintains a webpage about some of the more important figures in this area, and has recently added a new page about the late Al Hartley, who is perhaps best known for writing and drawing the Christian Spire comics of Archie, Jughead and the gang.

• Posted at 12:24 PM · LINK

Tape Worms

My friend Earl and I spent this evening plowing through crates of old videotapes that I've had in storage for, in some cases, two decades. I'm transferring everything I want to keep to DVD and getting rid of the tapes themselves. Over the last few months, I've converted most of the labelled tapes that contain stuff worth keeping and tonight, we went through a few boxes of unlabelled ones to see what was on them.

Lots of interesting finds in those boxes, some of which caused me to wonder, "Why the hell did I keep that?" There were also loads of shows and movies I kept, blithely unaware I would someday be able to buy high-quality copies. I kept episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Dick Van Dyke Show and I had several bad bootleg videos of Disney features. It seemed like a big deal to have these in 1979. Now you can get much better copies at K-Mart.

But we also found things that aren't out on DVD and probably never will be...like I seem to have a tape of National Lampoon's Disco Beaver From Outer Space, which was one of the first original programs made for HBO. It came out in 1978 and the thing I remember most about it takes me back to 1981 when the Writers Guild went on strike over, among other things, fees for made-for-cable shows. I was brought into a Guild strategy meeting because someone thought I knew something about the technology and might help the lawyers figure out how to construct a formula for reruns of cable programming. This National Lampoon special was the best example at hand, so grown men in ties had to keep talking, over and over, about Disco Beaver From Outer Space while the fate of Hollywood employment was left to dangle.

(There were also tapes I didn't find and doubt I will. Does anyone out there have a copy of Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants?)

Here's a question that's probably just for friends in the Los Angeles area. Does anyone have a good use for a lot of old videotapes in the Beta and 3/4" U-Matic format? I have a few hundred Betamax tapes — some store-bought copies, some I taped myself. I also have around a hundred 3/4" tapes I don't want. Most of the latter have stuff on them you wouldn't want and which you'd just tape over. The Betas contain some goodies...but nothing you can't find, generally in better quality, on DVD or VHS. I'm asking folks in the L.A. area because I don't want to go through the hassle of mailing. I'd like someone to come up with a van, haul them off and put them to constructive purpose. Drop me a line if this is you.

• Posted at 2:11 AM · LINK