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Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

The Pacific

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, tagged , , , , on March 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

HBO starts a new series tonight that I’ve been anticipating for a while now.  The Pacific is a 10-part series that follows the path of several soldiers as they fight in the Pacific theatre of World War II. 

It’s in the same vein as Band of Brothers, which  was set in WW II Europe, and set the standard for films of the sort with it’s fast paced action and dynamic camera work that gave one a true sense of the danger and the brutal reality of the situation.  The Pacific is produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks who also produced Band of Brothers.  They wanted to honor the soldiers who fought in the Pacific by giving their stories the same careful treatment in the telling that they did with Band of Brothers.

I doubt that anyone will be greatly disappointed. 

When I saw the image above I was instantly hit with the feeling that one gets from looking at one of the nightmare landscapes of Hieronymous Bosch which I suppose is only fitting.  I can’t fully imagine what it must have taken to persevere through the extreme hardships of the  campaigns on those islands.   It must have literally felt like hell on earth , a neverending carousel of horror and terror.  Those who survived deserve every honor they received and more.

They certainly have my respect…

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Bloodline

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Television, tagged , on March 6, 2010| 4 Comments »

I’ve written quite a bit lately about the concept of home and the search that many of us go through in defining what home truly means.  It’s all part of a process of determining who we really are as individuals and what our place is in the grand scheme of things.  Home and family are the two fundamental building blocks upon which we build our own definitions of self.  Home is where we are and feel we belong in the present and family is where we have been in the past, the basic bloodlink that has carried us to this point in time.

I’ve written about my research into my family and that of my wife so it was with some interest that I watched a new program last night called Who Do You Think You Are? that traces the lineage of celebrities on a weekly basis.  I really couldn’t  care less about the celebrity part (in fact, this show might be more interesting if they randomly chose to trace the roots of some very everyday folks) but am always interested in seeing how a person is affected when finding a new depth and understanding of their distant past.  Such was the case with last night’s subject, Sarah Jessica Parker.

Parker, like many of us, knew little of her past and felt that her family was only on the fringe of the American experience, that they had little to do with the events of the past that shaped and made this country.  I knew that feeling well .  In her case, her past easily revealed itself with just a bit of research and she was able to find a great-grandfather who from several generations back who left home and family in Ohio and crossed the country via wagon train, questing for fortune for his family in the gold mines of California.  Part of the Gold Rush and staking a claim with partners, he worked the mine and died of illness within a year.  His story is emblematic of the American push into the west.

Going back further, she found her family in the center of the Salem witch trials of the 1690’s, with a great-grandmother who, as a young woman, was accused of witchcraft but was spared from the death by hanging that all other who had been previously accusedsuffered as the trials were halted before her case came before the court.   Without the stoppage of the trials, Parker’s very existence would be in doubt.  Again, she finds herself in the middle of events that shaped the narrative of our country.  Going further, I’m sure she will find her family in the midst of events that shaped history in the countries of her ancestors.

Such is the case with us all.  It was interesting to see her story and to see how she was moved by and connected with the stories of her ancestors, how she gained insight and appreciation for the journey that led to this very moment in time.  Her’s is a wonderful story but not a rare one.  All of us have a rich heritage if we only choose to look, a wealth of information that winds through and connects us with the annals (yes, annals) of history.  We all are more than we seem and all are alive as the result of  many amazing sets of circumstance.

I have often thought if we all comprehended what it took to get us as a people to this point, how those ancestors who came before us risked and sacrificed for home and family, then we might take more pride in who we are and take more personal responsibility for our future.

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Songs Along The Way

Posted in Early Paintings, Television, tagged , , on February 21, 2010| 3 Comments »

Late last year, I was contacted by a man who wanted to use a painting of mine that he had acquired ten or so years ago as part of the packaging for a CD he was about to release.  The piece, To the Victor,  was one that I remembered well from that time and I agreed to his use of the image.  It was, however, a painting that I only had documented with a slide that had been damaged so he would have to get the painting photographed.  No problem.

This week I received a copy of the CD from the artist and was pleased to see the painting on the cover of the CD’s booklet.  The piece fits well with the title of the CD as well, Songs Along the Way, from songwriter Gary Portnoy.

Gary Portnoy is best known as the singer and composer of perhaps the best known theme song from any TV show ever, the Cheers theme, Where Everybody Knows Your Name.  Who hasn’t at least hummed along to that tune at some point?  He has also written the themes of several other television shows, garnering two Emmy nominations, and his songs have been recorded and performed by a wide variety of artists.   To find out  more about Gary’s music and his career check out his website by simply clicking the cover from his new CD, shown here.

You always hope that your work will live well with the people who obtain it and it’s extremely gratifying to have a piece such as To the Victor still resonate with its owner so that he chooses it to represent, in some small way, his own work.  Many thanks to you, Gary.

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It’s Time For the Olympics!

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, tagged , , , , on February 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

I’m pretty excited because the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics are being held tonight in Vancouver.  Cheri and I have both been Olympic junkies since we were children.  For both of us, it was really sparked by the 1972 Munich games which had great television coverage of the games.  Unfortunately, the horror and the  human drama of the eleven Israeli athletes who were taken hostage and eventually killed by Palestinian terrorists overshadowed the feats of Mark Spitz and Olga Korbut and the controversy of the USA/ USSR men’s basketball championship game which ended with the USA team having the victory gold ripped from their hands by a series of  incredible calls by officials, on and off the court.  To this day, their second place silver medals lay unclaimed in a Swiss vault.

The winter olympics over the years have yielded some of the most memorable moments for us.  There is, of course, the Miracle on Ice of the US men’s gold in hockey at the 1980 Lake Placid Games.  Torvill and Dean’s transcendent ice dancing.  Eric Heiden, Apollo Ohno and Bonnie Blair’s exploits in speedskating, not forgetting the failure and redemption of skater Dan Jantzen.  There were the exploits of Eddie the Eagle, the Brit whose Olympic triumph came in the fact that he simply made it to the bottom of the hill each time he took off from the ski jump.

So many memories of triumph and failure.  For Cheri and me, the moment that crystallizes the Olympics into a single moment is the final run by Austrian Franz Klammer in the men’s downhill at the 1976 Innsbruck games.  Klammer was the hero of Austria and carried all their hopes for success in the games.  There may never have been an Olympic athlete with such high expectations placed on a single event.  A sizzling time had been put up on the board by a competitor and Klammer came to the line as the final skier.  With his homeland screaming and ringing cowbells, Klammer unleashed a performance that could be considered as the definition for walking the line between disaster and triumph.  From the very top, he skied with utter abandon.  He flailed and fought his way down the big hill, often off balance with one ski off the ground.  Somehow he made it to the line and Austria erupted when hiis winning time came up on the board. 

That was a triumph of Olympic proportion.

So, for the next couple of weeks we’ll be glued to the games, seeing if there will be a new lasting memory.  A big moment of triumph.  A big moment of failure.  A quiet moment of redemption.   It’ll all be there, I’m sure.

After all, it’s time for the Olympics.

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Mummers!

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Television, Video, tagged , , on January 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday was the annual appearance of the Mummer’s Parade from Philadelphia, which has been going on for a couple of hundred years there although the first “official” parade was held in 1901.  It’s usually held on or around New Year’s Day and fills Broad Street in Philly with incredibly costumed bands playing out pretty ornate choreographed pieces.  The amazing thing is how much effort is put in by the social clubs of that city throughout the year, practicing and making the stunning costumes, for the five minutes or so they get in the spotlight.

The idea of the Mummer’s Parade is derived from the Mummer’s Plays of medieval Europe where groups of costumed performers went door to door, acting out their simple plays which had many regional variations but normally involved a Hero being killed by some sort of evil opponent then being revived by a Doctor of sorts, usually on the day after Christmas.  It has survived in many parts of the world and is still often practiced during the holiday season with revelers going from home to home, singing and accepting drinks and such from their hosts.

They show part of the parade annually on WGN , the nationally broadcast superstation out of Chicago, and we always watch at least part of it.  It’s a great scene and you have to admire the dedication these groups have for the tradition of this parade.  Cheri has often said that it would be a great setting for a movie from Christopher Guest and company, of Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and Waiting For Guffman fame.  These movies usually have self-contained environments and casts of really interesting characters.  Perfect fit for this parade. Maybe Murder at the Mummers?

Here’s an example of one of the string bands, one of the different competing divisions:

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Kennedy Center Honors 2009

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Television, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

They showed the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors on television last night.  It’s always an interesting show, highlighting the careers of some of the most enduring and venerable performers and entertainers.  A virtual who’s who of our culture over the last half century.

For me, this years group of honorees was as good as it gets across the board.  You had high culture with operatic hero Grace Bumbry, jazz culture with the ever hip piano of Dave Brubeck, rock and roll with Bruce Springsteen, the world of comedy from Mel Brooks and the ultimate in dramatic acting from Robert De Niro.  What an incredible group.

One of the highlights for me was the absolute look of joy on Dave Brubeck’s face as his four sons joined in to play a medley of his compositions.  The night fell on his 89th birthday and he seems to be a testament to the longevity of those who are able to follow their passion.  I don’t know squat about jazz but what I feel is that Brubeck’s work has appeal across the spectrum of listeners out there.  There’s enough stellar playing and complicated rhythms to satisfy real jazz fans yet it’s incredibly accessible to the less savvy, like me.  Great stuff.

Of course, the other was the tribute to Bruce Springsteen.  I’ve been a big fan for well over 30 years and it’s been interesting to see how he has transformed into an elder statesman of  popular music.  I think that Jon Stewart hit it right on the head for me when he spoke of Bruce’s willingness to empty the tank for his audience every night as being the thing that most struck him and influenced him as a young fan.  I know seeing Bruce when I was younger made me hungry to find something, anything, that would make me feel that same passion and commitment in my own life.  Something where, like Bruce, I could give everything I had.  The medium wasn’t important.  It was all about the spirit of the effort, the total dedication to your own vision.  That is always in the back of mind when I see him, even today.

I remember writing a letter in the 70’s (long before e-mail) to Dave Marsh, the Rolling Stone editor who had just written an early bio of Bruce, describing how the music affected me.  I was working in a factory and couldn’t see anything on the horizon but when I listened to Bruce I was no longer a loser, a factory drone.  I had hope.  It was very much how Jon Stewart described his own experience.  Marsh responded with a lovely handwritten letter, that I still prize today, telling me how he was moved by my letter.  That, too, served as inspiration to search further, to give more.

Thanks, Bruce, for the inspiration.  You deserve this honor…

Here’s nice version of My City of Ruins from night’s show, performed by Eddie Vedder.  Enjoy.

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Missing Christmas Specials

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2009| 2 Comments »

We’re into the Christmas season and the airwaves are filled with Christmas specials.  There are the venerable classics such as A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer alongside newer offerings featuring Shrek and other contemporary animated figures.  Some come and go, shown only for a short time.  Perhaps not timeless enough or just victims to ratings.

The specials you never see today are the variety show Christmas specials from the past featuring stars like Andy Williams, Sonny and Cher, the Osmonds and of course, Bing Crosby.  They were goofy contrivances with lots of fake snow and blazing fireplaces on studio sets with terrible jokes and a lot of forced, saccharine  sentimentality.

But I always liked the Bing Crosby Christmas shows.  They weren’t quite as schlocky as the others and you had Bing’s beautiful voice on several holiday classics throughout.  One classic moment came when a young David Bowie appeared on Bing’s last special in 1977, filmed a month before his death.  The show’s producers wanted him to sing The Little Drummer Boy with Bing but Bowie was not a fan of the song and refused.  With the cameras waiting, a new song, Peace on Earth, was written and woven into the other song.  The finished product was done with less than an hour of rehearsal and remains a perennial holiday favorite on radio playlists everywhere.

It’s a great duet and stands up well.  It’s moments like this that make me miss those old specials…

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Meet the Natives

Posted in Opinion, Television, tagged , , , , on November 30, 2009| 6 Comments »

We were flipping around the dial last night and came across a show on the Travel Channel called Meet the Natives.  It was a reality show where a group of five tribesmen from the small island of Tanna in Vanuatu,  which is part of Melanesia in the western Pacific, travel to the USA to visit with five different families in different parts of the country.  Meeting our natives.  Last night’s episodes consisted of a visit to a large working ranch in Montana and then on to some time with a fairly wealthy Manhattan family.

At first, given the exploitive nature of most reality shows, I wasn’t too keen on watching but we thought we’d give it a few minutes.  I’m glad I did.

The five tribesmen come from a society that we would call primitive.  They live in the jungle, nude for the most part but for their nambas, which are penis sheaths.  They farm small crops and raise a few animals, primarily pigs and chickens, for their sustenance. They also hunt with traditional weapons made from the materials of the forest.  They enjoy celebratory dances and an occasional sip of kava, the traditional sedating beverage made from the kava root.  They have a system of beliefs very much tied to their environment and nature.

They may be the happiest people on earth.

The five chosen for this trip to the US, which follows an earlier trip to Britiain, were charming.  They were inquisitively open-minded and full of good humor.  The chief of their tribe was one of the travelers and made very astute comments about what he saw.  One, called Happy Man, was always laughing and joking, endearing himself to everyone he met with his smile and playful manner.  Another served as their translator, having left the tribe for a while to go to school where he learned English.

Their first stop was in Montana.  They were the guests of a family that ran a large ranch with about 5000 heads of cattle.  It was a surprisingly good fit for the tribesmen.  They were able to see equivalencies in the day to day life of the cowboys with their own, such as the care of the animals.  They also fit in well at the local tavern where they drank beer for the first time (“sour but nice”) and danced to a country western band.  They do like to dance.

An interesting moment came when they were out where they first encountered snow, which was somewhat comical.  They stumbled across a buffalo and scampered to higher ground where they watched it.  Their description of it was wonderful.

It looks like a cow but it is no cow.  It has the face of a devil and the hair of a man.

I can only wonder what the folks back home will envision when they hear their account.

They then went to NYC which was much more alien than Montana to the men.  While they were fascinated by many of the things they came across, the chief always registered a bit of sadness of how the people of the city lived, how they were so dependent on money for all their needs.  They encountered a homeless man in Central Park and were perplexed that such a thing should happen in a place with so much.

Happy Man said that it was obvious that no one loved this man.

Kind of sums it up.

There were a lot of things I could go on about the tribesmen.  They may live what we callously call a primitive existence but their intelligence and wisdom is anything but primitive.

If you get a chance, tune in.  You’ll look at our country with different eyes…

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Monster Movie Matinee

Posted in At the Movies, Biographical, Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Television, tagged , , , on October 31, 2009| 19 Comments »

Dr. Witty on Monster Movie MatineeWith Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, my mind switches back to past Halloweens and all the things that go with them.  Part of my normal Saturday routine growing up was to be in front of the TV at 1 o’clock to watch Monster Movie Matinee, a show out of Syracuse that ran for a couple of decades and showed classic ( and not so classic, as the years went by) horror and sci-fi movies.

It was a great kitschy broadcast.  It would start with the camera panning in over an obvious model of an haunted-type mansion on a hill as eerie monster movie music played.  It was hosted by Dr. E. Nick Witty (I think this is supposed to be funny but it eludes me) and his assistant, the wretched Epal. Epal on Monster Movie Matinee You never saw anything of Dr. Witty but his long emotive fingers.  His voice was kind of a bad Bela Lugosi copy that played perfectly for this type of show.  Epal, played by the station’s longtime weatherman who also played other characters (his character, Salty Sam, introduced me to Popeye cartoons) on a number of other shows, was covered in rough-edged scars and wore an eyepatch.  He seemed to constantly erode as the years passed.

They had storylines that they used as they introduced the films, little vignettes that ran from week to week.  Goofy stuff but fun.  They let the movies they showed be the real stars and I saw most of the greats through them.  All the Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman movies were in regular rotation in the early years mixed in with a plethora of lower quality, monstery B-movies, which kind of took over in the later years.

215px-Creature_from_the_Black_Lagoon_posterI remember one wet and dark Halloween Saturday back then spending the afternoon watching one of my favorites with Dr. Witty and Epal.  It was The Creature From the Black Lagoon.  It was a movie that was shown at least a few times a year so it became part of the kid memory bank.  It was the story of a group of geological researchers sent to explore a fossilized skeletal claw-like hand found up the Amazon where they encounter the Creature, a rubber-clad Gill-Man who makes repeated attacks on the research vessel, finally abducting the babe girlfriend of the main scientist.

Originally in 3-D in the theaters, was a pretty stylish 50’s monster movie.  Pretty good quality, actually.  The Creature was a great costume, very sleek and somewhat believable- at least to the kid sitting on the couch with the Fig Newtons.  It had nice underwater photography of the Creature gliding after his prey and also had great sound and music that really enhanced the story.  It wasn’t the scariest but it kept you involved with the story.   I always felt more of a connection with the Creature than I did with the crew of researchers and actually felt myself kind of rooting for him at times.  Much like King Kong, he seemed sadly alone.

That wet and dark Saturday many years ago seems to come to life now whenever I think of the Creature or Halloween, for that matter.  I remember the light.  The smell of that living room. Funny how certain things, even the smallest trivialities, imprint on the memory  when coupled with something important, as Halloween was to a kid.

Today I’m thinking of that day and that lonely Gill-Man and Dr. Witty…

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The Smell of Pomade

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, tagged , , , on October 24, 2009| 1 Comment »

TV JohnI was taking a shower yesterday when a scent filled my nose.  It was an odd yet familiar smell, a bit like gunpowder wafting from the barrel of a gun.  It wasn’t something that I had anticipated and I don’t know where it came from but I was suddenly reminded of TV John McKeever, a character from the BBC series Hamish MacBeth that ran several years back.  That’s him in the photo.  The show was the story of a quirky,small Scottish village and its constable, Hamish MacBeth (played by Robert Carlyle.)  It reminded me of a Highland version of Northern Exposure except that it had more drama and mystery, a whodunit with a bit of humor.

One of the main characters was TV John McKeever,  so named for having been the first in town with a TV, who was more or less MacBeth’s deputy.  He was a tall, mysterious character with a bit of clairvoyance.  He had experienced a premonition of his own death and knew that his death would be imminent when he would smell  a particular scent of pomade, which is a hair gel of sorts.  Think of the Dapper Dan cans in O Brother Where Art Thou? This was a recurring plot point in the series.

So there I was in the shower, thinking of TV John and the smell of pomade that would be to him the smell of death, and I began to wonder, “What if this scent I now smelled was my smell of pomade?”

What if today were to be my last day on this earth?  How would I live it?  If I were able to scan back through this last day, as though the day were a movie viewed through my eyes, what would I see?  Would today be a good day to carry with me as my last day, filled with images that meant something to me?

All this was within a flash of seconds and I found myself realizing that I was taking so much for granted around me.  I was not stopping, if only for a moment, to take in the way things really appear around me.  To take in the grandeur of the trees of the forest that I walked through every day.  To look up at the stars on a cold autumn night and see the way the stars and planets change position in the sky.  To see how a squirrel races through the limbs of the hickories around my house.

Simple things.  Things that I simply forget to take notice of on a regular basis.  But things that give texture and depth to my life, things of which I would want to take notice on that day when the smell of pomade wafted into my nostrils…


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