Assignments — some even of the paying variety — have me waaaay backlogged on e-mail. (What is he working on? All sorts of things but the main one will probably be announced in the Hollywood trade papers within a week or three.) Anyway, this is another one of those pathetic, irresponsible postings to tell you that if I owe you a response, please forgive me. And posting may be light here until I finish most of those responses and maybe, just maybe, a smidgen more of that distracting real work.
Which reminds me: Thanks to all of you who sent donations in response to my experiment to see if the economy was truly growing. It turns out the test was inconclusive. I received about half of what I got the previous time I asked, but that may have been because several folks informed me that, while they'd love to send me cash, they know the economy is in bad shape and didn't want to contribute to the delusion that it's better. If you were one such person, I hereby declare the survey to be over so you can donate now and it will not count as an indication that the Bush tax cuts stimulated the nation's finances. In fact, if donations increase now, I'd take that as a sure sign that the Bush plan has failed.
Yeah, I know. Shameless.
Several of you have written to ask what I think of Identity Crisis, which is a new series of some sort from DC Comics. Answer: I haven't seen it. Several more of you have written to ask what I think of that new Sky Captain movie, whatever it's called. Answer: I haven't seen it, either. And a lot of you have written to ask what I think of the allegedly-forged National Guard memos. Answer: I don't know if they're forged. It sure looks that way…but then again, that view is being sold hard by a lot of folks, including rival news organizations, that have been dying for an opportunity to humiliate Dan Rather. That doesn't mean they're wrong; just that we should be…well, a lot more skeptical of all "experts" than CBS was in accepting the documents in the first place. In any case, I still think Bush skated on his National Guard service and I still don't think it's much of a reason to vote against him. I mean, if what's going on with Iraq doesn't convince you…
Caught a little of the Miss America pageant the other night, largely by accident. I can dimly recall when this contest mattered but I can't quite remember why. Once upon a time, I guess the idea was just to pick someone who could be crowned The Most Envied Woman in America and sent off on a tour of car shows and store openings…kind of a manufactured celebrity. Now, of course, we manufacture celebrities faster than the Nabisco people manufacture Wheat Thins…and The Most Envied Woman in America is probably a supermodel, recording artist, Playmate or movie star. In other words, she's not someone who will gladly spend the next year in the employ of the Miss America people, cutting ribbons and promoting an antiquated worldview. Still, the company that runs the pageant has this business going and they need someone to wear the tiara and sign autographs, so they keep the competition alive.
But the host (who was that guy?) just takes the thing too seriously, and the winner is no longer snaring an honor that every little girl dreams of winning…and every year, fewer and fewer people tune in. They may notch a bit of a ratings spike this time since they made the world-shattering leap to allowing the ladies to wear bikinis, but that's a trick that won't resuscitate a dying institution. What they may have to do — and I'm actually half-serious about this — is to acknowledge that the whole contest is turning into a joke and then beat everyone to the punchline. It ought to be more tongue-in-cheek and camp, either with an emcee who's hip enough to conduct and simultaneously mock the proceedings, or someone who'll play it just like Bert Parks would have if he were still with us. And then they'd need to get away from the idea that being Miss America is the crowning achivement of any woman's entire life. This year's winner is a Rhodes Scholar finalist who, the news reports say, was accepted into the University of Alabama's medical school but delayed her entry to compete in beauty pageants. That's not as vapid as it may sound because her winnings will finance her education. That's altogether worthy and that's what everyone ought to keep in mind; that being in a beauty pageant is just a real good summer job.
Okay. Back to work…