The Sound of the Crowd

If you know any 16 to 18 year old boys, you might want to send them this.

And will be for a long time, it is to be hoped, given that her opponent is showing all the maturity of John Landis…*
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Kerry’s Crucial Night (Washington Post)

Salon.com News item about a new series of ads critisizing President Bush. The ads feature mothers who have lost children to the war in Iraq. My…well, I hesitate to say “my favorite,” but…the one I think is most effective:

“a California mother named Jane Bright, who remains livid about Bush’s rash “Bring ‘em on!” challenge. “Mr. Bush,” she says, “I have no way of knowing whether the insurgent who killed my son ever heard your foolish taunt. But thanks to you, Mr. President, I have the rest of my life to wonder about it.”

A group of people who, as the writer says, you might think would be protected “from assaults by the right-wing patriotism police, but one would be wrong.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d sure like to see those ads run on CSI, Survivor, and Monday Night Football.

Sahara Hotnights

Article here from Delhi Newsline (didn’t know I was so jet-set, did you?) on the way TV networks keep shows on the air long past their prime. To quote Paul Buchman of Mad About You (a good example), this is what I’m saying.

As they point out, ratings (=advertising rates=money) is what decides these things, not storytelling. But they shouldn’t put all the blame on the networks–there’s enough to go around for producers and fans, too.

David Gerrold once said a TV producer was “a human being who has made the mistake of falling asleep next to a green pod filled with money. When he awakes again, he has been tranformed into an alien being that feeds on power, talent, and the blood of the innocent.” Whenever I see someone who clearly is (or has been) a supremely talented writer continue to push their wares well past their sell-by date…I think of that quote.

You can all think of at least one example, can’t you? I know I can.

And as I’ve discussed here before, few things in pop culture make me scratch my head as much as those who seemingly will accept any old crap, as long as it has the right brand.

So yeah, TV shows in this country go on too long. But just blaming the networks is too easy. It reminds me of what I’m told David Mamet once said about people who complain they were treated badly in Hollywood: It’s like a guy climbing out of a boxing ring accusing, “He hit me!”

At least the networks will tell you that rating$ matter more to them than storytelling. TV producers (some not all) will insist to you that they’re going into their eighth season simply because they had more stories to tell. Just saw Ray Romano (who produces as well as stars in his series) do it in TV Guide today. The one million+ per episode he was offered doesn’t enter into it at all.

Have I mentioned lately what a good guy Mark Evanier is?

New Republic article here arguing that Conan O’Brien’s ascension to The Tonight Show will be the end of his comedy as we know it. “For nothing seems more anti-Conan–more antithetical to his irreverent, superficially collegiate but sophisticatedly subversive meta-humor–than being the company man who’s happy to do what he has to do to win the coveted corner office.”

I think this is a little naive, myself. Hands up, anyone who’s surprised that a man who’s done a network talk show for 12 years turns out to be a “company man.”

And I say that as a fan of Conan’s. Of the “big three” currently on the air, he’s the only one I will sometimes tune in on even if he doesn’t have a guest I like. At least to see the monologue and opening bit.

But I don’t think–

“the expansiveness of Conan’s mind has always promised a more expressive future–movies, solo TV specials, live stand-up, books, entertainment royalty.”

–is supportable in terms of O’Brien’s career path to date. People who really do “sophisticatedly subversive meta-humor” don’t get jobs interviewing sitcom stars in the first place. That’s why people like Conan, Jay and Dave do it.

And why Bill Hicks didn’t.

1. Yesterday I opined that I’d like to see someone like Joe Conason on a debate panel. Today, he offers not the questions he would ask President Bush, but the ones he’s sure Kerry can expect–and the answers he thinks he should give.

2. Watching the debate so you don’t have to!

–Not me, thank goodness, Kevin Drum. In The Washington Monthly blog, he announces he’ll be “live debate blogging” tomorrow night, which should be worth a glance.

He also quotes an observation by James Fallows “about the vast difference between the George Bush of today and the George Bush of 1994, when he was debating Ann Richards during the Texas gubernatorial race:

‘This Bush was eloquent. He spoke quickly and easily. He rattled off complicated sentences and brought them to the right grammatical conclusions….More striking, he did not pause before forcing out big words, as he so often does now, or invent mangled new ones. ”

….Obviously, Bush doesn’t sound this way as President, and there is no one conclusive explanation for the change.’

I have a totally questionable one, but what the hell it’s my blog. Why the big change between then and now? Answer:

He was sober then.

Cast your mind back. Do you really think Bush passed out cold on the White House floor because he was eating a pretzel?

A couple weeks back I wrote something here to the effect that the idea of a Gore-Dean ticket was starting to look really good. Because they wouldn’t have the millstone of seemingly having voted for and then against going to war in Iraq. This essay in Time expands on part of that; it dosn’t include Gore but asks the question, What If Dean Were the Candidate? And comes to a similar conclusion to mine.

On the other hand (see how I flip-flop), Tapped counters that essay by arguing, “Kerry hasn’t attracted a reputation as a flip-flopper because he’s flopped more often than anyone else with a substantial record in public life; he got the reputation because he’s been the target of a massive propaganda effort to paint him as a flip-flopper.”

This is undeniably true. But as I’ve indicated before, I have a lot of trouble feeling sympathy for Kerry when it comes to attacks on his Iraq vote. He gave a ten-year-old brat a big stick, trusted him not to stir up a hornets nest, and when the brat did just that, pled innocence.

Nuh-uh. So far as I’m concerned, Kerry and Edwards and every single Senator who “voted to give The President the authority” shares responsibility for the terrible state of Iraq.

I’ll still vote for them, because, y’know…ABB. But I won’t be forgetting that.

Read both, make up your own mind.