Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here's yet another reason to be sorry Johnny Carson isn't still with us and hosting his TV show. It's the field day he'd have with the fact that his sidekick, Ed McMahon, now has his own brand of vodka.

This one only runs thirty seconds but it's a good thirty seconds. It's a commercial for Cocoa Puffs cereal starring everyone's favorites, Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose. I always thought it was odd to see those characters with decent animation. Their episodes were done on the cheap with most of the work done in Mexico but every so often, something would be animated in L.A. with a real budget. This ad was one such effort.

Recently, a high school in The Bronx decided to put on a production of the musical, Chicago. When the folks who control the rights to that show heard about it, the school received a cease-'n'-desist letter and a brief controversy erupted. This article in The New York Times summarizes the problem the outcome and the new controversy about the resolution. Some of the other press coverage played this story like the evil lords of Broadway were trying to stifle the enthusiasm and spirit of some fresh-faced high school kids but it seems to me that the school was wholly in the wrong on this one. The Times article is a little more realistic but it still raises some questions…like why a person who's teaching drama didn't know that if you want to stage a copyrighted show, you have to obtain the permission of the copyright holders.

Here's a news story that may mushroom into a major controversy…and probably should. U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson bragged to a gathering of folks from minority-owned real estate companies that one of their own lost a lucrative contract just because he uttered the words, "I don't like President Bush." And the contractor didn't even say that in public. He said it on the phone to Jackson.

So follow this: They decide some real estate company is worthy of a contract. Then they take it away from him just because the guy there said he didn't like Bush. Then they tell this story to people from other real estate companies as a warning.

There are many reasons Bush is around a 31% approval rating. One of them is the perception that this administration cannot deal — rationally or even ethically — with anything short of blind loyalty and agreement.

Sorry to report that I failed to break my previous record of Watching a David Blaine Special, which was 52 minutes and 10 seconds. This time, I only lasted 47 minutes and 31 seconds before I felt myself gasping for air and my support team had to come in and get me out. And I have to admit that I cheated: Half an hour in, I couldn't stand the repetitive hype any longer and I fast-forwarded to the end to watch the finale as Blaine attempted and failed to break the world's record of holding one's breath underwater. (I suspect he did it the hard way: As I understand it, the record he was trying to shatter was for just holding one's breath. Blaine was trying to hold his breath and get out of eight pairs of handcuffs — which you'd kinda figure would make the breath-holding part a little more difficult.)

I admire the guy's physical stamina and to a certain extent, his showmanship. No one else these days — not Copperfield, not Lance Burton — is able to come up with a gimmick that will make a network buy a prime-time magic special. Blaine does, even though it means putting himself through physical hell and risking his life. I'm not sure that's entertainment and I'm not sure America does, either. Despite all the publicity and the opportunity to tune in and maybe see someone die on live TV, the ratings were only a slight improvement over whatever usually hovers in that time period. You'd think he'd do better than that, especially since a show like this would seem to have a two-pronged, foolproof appeal. Those who like David Blaine would tune in because they like him. Those who don't like David Blaine would tune in hoping to see him kill himself.

I'm not sure which of those groups I fall into, though I know I wouldn't want to see him kill himself. In fact, there's something very tasteless and irresponsible about all those doctors standing around, saying he shouldn't be doing this and that his life is in danger…but of course, they're there to support him. I think if I were a doctor and I was really concerned that the guy might off himself or do major damage to his body, I'd refuse to participate. There's a sense in which my presence would be enabling him to go on and attempt it. On the other hand, if I thought it was relatively safe, I don't think I'd be out there suggesting otherwise in order to ratchet up the drama.

As a magician, Blaine is quite skilled…though I've never quite understood the concept of Street Magic. He's always spoken of it like it's an old tradition but to the extent it is, it's also an outmoded one. Magicians may have done a lot of that before there were TV or Las Vegas showrooms or The Magic Castle but nowadays, Street Magic doesn't make a lot of sense. For one thing, there's no money in it. I don't think Mr. Blaine would be walking up to strangers on the boulevard and asking them to take a card, any card, unless he had a camera crew and a contract.

It's a nice gimmick — "taking magic to the people" — but it's also one that enables him to cheat a little. If you do magic before a legitimate audience — even taping for later editing and broadcast — and your trick fails, a lot of folks are going to see that failure. If you do tricks on a street corner for two people and a trick doesn't work, so what? Just toss that footage and do it again for someone else. Some of Blaine's on-the-street tricks depend on a little luck so he can tape one of them ten times with ten different "victims" and throw out the nine times it didn't work. Also, some of his tricks depend on the live audience not noticing some pretty simple gimmicks. If that audience is two people, that's a lot easier than if there are hundreds there…and of course, his camera crew and editors can control what we see or even if we see the trick at all.

In a way, Blaine redeems himself by going to the opposite extreme with the "live" part of his shows — the deadly feat performed in front of the whole world with no edits or camera tricks possible. If you find that kind of daredevil thing entertaining, I guess he does it well. I also guess I don't find it all that entertaining. I find it rather curious and odd, which is why I'm surprised I watched as much as I did.

Over and over, they kept telling us "don't try this at home," which always sounded to me like an odd way to phrase such a warning, even though I used to write that into the dialogue on a show that featured a lot of dangerous stunts. What they didn't want you to try at home because of the Blaine special was something Blaine himself wasn't trying it at home. He was in Lincoln Center surrounded by doctors and a rescue team with oxygen tanks. Frankly, there's zero chance of me trying something like that in my home…and only a slightly better chance of me watching the next David Blaine special there.

I am now about to attempt something dangerous. Last night, my TiVo recorded the entire two-hour special, David Blaine: Drowned Alive, and I am now going to risk my life by attempting to view it. I have a team of doctors standing by as well as a rescue unit that is prepared to go in and get me before any possible brain damage can occur. I pray that I will not need them.

Let's see how long I last. Start the clock.

My longtime pal Gary Brown sends along this link to an article in the Palm Beach Post. Its TV critic, Kevin Thompson, picked what he considered the five top TV series finales. Gary also writes…

I pretty much agree with his choices, but not the order. I must admit, I forgot about The Fugitive's ending, since it's been so long ago, but that created quite a stir and was handled well. I think I'd put the Newhart Show ending as No. 1, since it was such a surprise and so very clever. But it's hard to argue with any of these. In fact, I've been trying to think of other finales and there aren't many of them — Seinfeld was funny and wacky, but probably too long of a goodbye. Of course, most shows get cancelled and never get the chance to wrap things up.

And some of them don't want to for fear it closes off any chance of a revival. But yes, I'd put Newhart at the top of the list with The Fugitive not far behind. Matter of fact, I recently ran into Mark Solomon, who was one of the folks responsible for that last Newhart and I gushed to him about how brilliant I still think it was. I also told him (and it wasn't the first time he'd heard this) that I knew someone who had been out that evening, set a VCR to tape the episode…and missed part of the ending. That Newhart, as it was originally broadcast, ran thirty seconds longer than expected — a fact that also caught at least one CBS affiliate unaware. On at least one station, they cut to local news before the show was over, enraging local viewers.

Here's a page where another TV critic picked the top finales and somehow didn't include The Fugitive.

Hey, how about another song from Kristin Chenoweth? We like her a lot even though she's very short. I met her one time and I think she's around nine inches tall. But she's enormously talented as you'll see in today's clip, which is from an old episode of Rosie O'Donnell's talk show in, I'm guessing, 2001. She sings "The Girl in 14G," which was written for her by Dick Scanlan and Jeanine Tesori, two fine composers who worked on the Broadway musical of Thoroughly Modern Millie. The number runs a little under five minutes…

About once a week lately, some person feels compelled to park a car so as to block part of my driveway. They see about half a legal parking space there and I guess they figure half-a-space is better than nothing…so they pull into it even though it means the rear 50% of the vehicle is situated across my driveway, right in front of my garage door.

I don't quite understand why they do this. Even if they don't care about causing inconvenience to the homeowner, even if they're willing to risk a ticket, you'd think they might worry about someone denting or scraping their auto in order to get out of that garage they're half-blocking. I guess it's some sort of calculated gamble…and so far, they seem to be getting away with it. Four times now, counting yesterday afternoon, I've phoned the police and asked them to have someone come by and issue a violation. Four times now, the person has returned to their car and departed before the law arrived.

Yesterday, I was leaving on some errands when I found a beige Hyundai where a beige Hyundai shouldn't have been. I went back inside, called the gendarmes, then went out to my car and executed a very awkward, difficult manuever to back out of my garage. I had just cleared the offending Hyundai when a scowling looking woman walked up and got into it. I pulled up beside her, rolled down my passenger window and called to her. "Please don't ever park like that again" is what I said. What I got back was a torrent of anger and language that would offend a Tourette's patient. I couldn't make all of it out but the gist seemed to be that a lot of sick, evil people had done a lot of sick, evil things to her over the years so she had every right to park wherever she wanted.

There didn't seem to be a lot of value to continuing the discussion…and since I was starting to block traffic, I wished her good luck with her Anger Management courses and drove off.

I don't have a punch line to this story. It's tempting to make one up ("…and then I realized that woman was Condoleezza Rice!") but there was nothing funny about the woman's rage. She was livid about something — too livid to take the time to find a whole parking space, too livid to apologize for blocking my driveway. I don't know what she'd have done if she'd come back twenty minutes later and found a citation on her car. Probably shot someone.

Fred Kaplan on the nomination of Michael Hayden to head the C.I.A. Why do I have the feeling this is Harriet Miers II?

I've decided I like the new version of I've Got a Secret airing on GSN. Well, let me clarify that: I like the show. I don't like the schedule.

I don't like that they run the same episodes over and over without telling us which ones are reruns. My TiVo has no way of differentiating so it keeps recording episodes I watched the day before. I also don't like the fact that GSN took off the black-and-white reruns of the original Garry Moore version so they could air the same episodes of the new version an extra time. Come on, GSN. In some parts of the country, it's 3 AM in the friggin' morning. You don't need to stick an extra run of one of your new shows there. Give us back our classic Secret.

But I like the show. In case you haven't seen it, Bil Dwyer is the host and the panel consists, for reasons I won't pretend to understand, of four openly-gay performers. All I can imagine is that someone said to someone else, "Hey, you know why Hollywood Squares worked? Because Paul Lynde was gay. Let's get four gay people." As it happens, they got some pretty funny gay people, especially Frank DeCaro and Suzanne Westenhoefer, and they're all good game players.

There are celebrity guests — my TiVo's getting sick of the one with Adam West — and unlike the old show, they actually come on with actual secrets. At least one guest per episode demonstrates an unusual skill or physical feat, and Dwyer keeps things moving nicely. So it's a worthy successor to the original series, and it's refreshing that no one felt the need to completely reinvent and modernize the wheel. They kept what worked and wrapped it in a nice, new package.

One of the producers is Burt DuBrow, a gent I've enjoyed chatting with on several occasions, usually about Howdy Doody. Burt is the world's foremost authority on that classic series, having been a close friend of Buffalo Bob's. At the end of I've Got a Secret, when they show the producers' production company logos, you can see an item from his collection…the little box that Clarabell Clown wore on his belt. If I owned something that neat, I'd show it off, too.

What's Mark found for us today? Well, how about Kristin Chenoweth singing a great song with the Boston Pops? It's "If," also known as "If You Hadn't But You Did." This is a song Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Style wrote for the 1951 Broadway revue, Two on the Aisle, which starred Bert Lahr. Mr. Lahr did not sing this song. The clip has some introductory material and goes in and out of sync but it's worth five minutes of your time.

I spent some time this evening mucking around with the design of this website. If you logged in here between around 9 PM and 11:00, things may have looked a bit weird but I think I'm finished for the time being. There will be more changes but not for a while.

A number of blogs are discussing that exchange that General Michael Hayden had with a reporter last January. Depending on which news source you read, Hayden may or may not be about to replace Porter Goss as head of the C.I.A. so his concept of governmental power could matter even more than it already does.

In fairness, there is a way to interpret Hayden's remarks that isn't quite as clueless as he may have seemed that day. The reporter, Jonathan Landay, suggested that the government has to have probable cause to execute a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. That's not exactly right, either. The Fourth Amendment says there can be no unreasonable searches and seizures, period. That's probably the point Hayden was trying to make.

As a reader of this site, Robert Cosgrove, wrote to me, "The fourth amendment requires that searches be 'reasonable.' Where a search requires a warrant, the warrant must be based on probable cause. However, many searches do not require a warrant, including searches of lockers by school authorities, searches incident to arrest, protective sweeps and weapons pat-downs, and others."

This may be splitting hair strands right down to the scalp. We agree that searches must be "reasonable." Beyond that, you can interpret the part about "probable cause" to say that is the standard required to obtain a warrant where one is necessary. Or you can interpret it to say that "probable cause" is the quality that makes any search, with or without a warrant, "reasonable." Both interpretations get you to pretty much the same place.

If you buy the distinction, the General's error came when the reporter asked, "Does it not say 'probable cause?'" Hayden said no, which left him wide open to the charge that he really didn't know those words were in the Fourth Amendment. But he may have meant, "No, it does not say that in quite the way you're presenting it." In which case, his mistake was not in also saying something like, "Yes, I know the words 'probable cause' are in the Fourth Amendment," and explaining the precious distinction he was trying to make.

Below, we have a link to a video of the exchange as it was presented at the time on Countdown With Keith Olbermann, so you can judge for yourself. Thanks to Roy Sorenson for suggesting I post it.

Jared Bernstein writes a film noir detective thriller about…the economy.