Primary Leftovers

At home after having done the unspeakable by voting for Hillary Clinton in the California Democratic Primary on Stupor Tuesday, I needed to decompress. By watching all the returns unfold over the cross of the evening. Sort of like trying to cure a hangover by downing a glass of scotch.

Inexplicably, NBC wasn't even bothering to cover the elections. They opted instead for another installment of "The Biggest Loser" which found some fatties trying to avoid inhaling a chocolate eclair. Since I still don't get CNN in HD, I chose ABC over CBS. For my money, George Stephanopoulos is probably the most underrated political reporter working today, and ABC is damn lucky to have him. Besides, Katie Couric was anchoring CBS for the night and she certainly got the wrong job at the Eye Network. She always looks like somebody is holding a gun to her head, and probably would have been better off spinning some prize wheel on "The Price Is Right."

Beyond the vote tally and a Democratic nomination race that is now tighter than the skin under Hillary's eyes, ABC's coverage allowed me, for the first time, to acquaint myself with the potential First Families. No need to focus on the Clintons, as we know them as well as the Clampetts. But, some of the others were unknowns to me. And, perhaps, I am better off.

Watching Ba-lack Osama's speech to his followers, I was struck by an eerie feeling that I had heard his linguistic patterns before. Sure enough. If you look around on You Tube for some of Martin Luther King's sound bites, you will quickly know that Obooboo has copied all of MLK's inflections. Coincidental? I highly doubt it. Everything about this jerk is totally calculated and I'm sure he knows exactly what he is doing. I was half expecting him to exclaim "I've BEEEEEN to the mountaintop." The more I watch Mrs. Osama Bin Laden, the more I realize that she is going to be big trouble in the White House. A smart, sarcastic, fresh mouth on a Black woman works well for Marla Gibbs on "The Jeffersons." That dog will not hunt on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Moving on to John McCain's victory speech, I was startled to see that he is apparently married to a chorus member from "High School Musical." She is that much younger. I understand that she is Wife Number Two, as he apparently long ago traded up from his first wife, who was apparently disabled in a car crash. While nobody is quite sure whether he's liberal or conservative, at least we can confirm that he's a dirty old man. But, McCain's wife was clearly outshone by his 96 year-old mother, who will hopefully live long enough to bring some class to the White House. She actually looks younger than her son and very much resembles Barbara Bush after two months on the South Beach Diet.

Off we went to Mitt Romney's headquarters and he's definitely on the 18th hole of his political campaign. There was nothing particularly memorable about the family standing behind him, and that pretty much is a metaphor for his Presidential aspirations.

The pinnacle of the night was my introduction to Mike Huckabee's family, which stood behind him while he continued to dispel the notion that God is an Independent. I had to blink twice when I saw his wife and kids, because I was convinced that I had turned off "The Biggest Loser." Huckabee's wife is the quintessential brick shithouse. She has a future as either a prison matron or a girls' gym teacher. I can swear that I saw her tackle David Tyree during Sunday's Super Bowl.

But, last night's shots of the Huckabees certainly didn't do them justice. Because it is best to view the potential First Family in this Christmas card photo.

I wouldn't let these peckerwoods move into my neighborhood, let alone the number one residence in the nation. The matching striped shirts make them look like a barber shop quartet at the Rahway State Prison. And the big one in the middle (granted they're all big) looks like somebody who has had a lot of experience working those shirt-folding machines they give to the more well-behaved psychopaths doing 10 to 20. The girl actually makes Chelsea Clinton look like Jennifer Aniston. Hopefully, the dog got smart and ran away after the picture was taken.

From all the families I saw, there's one more reason to lament the next four years.

Jackie, we hardly knew ye.

Dinner last night: Leftover pot roast.

Six More Wednesdays of Winter

For those of you who buy into rodent prognosticators...

---Does anybody actually care about this creature except a couple of goofballs in some dump out in Pennsylvania?

---You want to know how much winter is left? Find out when pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

---After the nuttiness of Stupor Tuesday, it becomes even more apparent that, regardless of who becomes President, it will be one term and out.

---As Chief Executive, Obama Bin Laden will be so inept and create such dissension in this country that he will be tossed out like yesterday's Domino's Pizza.

---Hillary would get bounced primarily because every male in the country would feel like they have a second mother-in-law.

---McCain would be a smarter version of Bush, but his GI Joe approach to the war would spark a return of hippie power.

---Indeed, given the intense media coverage these days, it will be very, very difficult for any President to serve two terms. Ever.

---I did love the videos of Hillary and Bill coughing their brains out after campaigning like crazy. Bill obviously had something in his throat.

---And that's the first time he's been on the receiving end.

---I love the way these candidates, all senators, have to return to their mother ships when they need to vote. States that they have neglected for months.

---Obooboo has been gone from Illinois so long that he had to turn his clocks back one hour.

---Did you ever see anybody eat a donut in one of those polling places?

---They keep talking about how America's young people are coming out in droves for Obama.

---Do you want the Nintendo generation selecting your next leader?

---If you want to see how stupid our youth have become, take a look at some resumes from recent college graduates.

---SPELLCHECK!

---I once saw a resume where the kid actually misspelled his address.

---And nobody writes cover letters with complete sentences anymore. The only place where you can get away with short, clipped sentences is in this blog.

---"I'm gonna vote for Hilery Klintion."

---Voting for Hillary and watching the Super Bowl for the first time in 26 years. Somebody run a brain scan on me stat.

---This also scared the pellets out of me. I took ABC News' Presidential match. She is apparently my ideal candidate!

---As my good friend, the Bibster, said, my viewing of the Super Bowl is the biggest news since we got cigars from Cuba.

---Anybody check e-Bay for a "19-0" t-shirt?

---Eli Manning and David Tyree will never ever pay for dinner and drinks in New York.

---Manning was so cagey that he looked like one of those personal injury attorneys at Three Mile Island.

---I figure my Super Bowl fandom is over for another 26 years. Unless, of course, the Jets ever get in.

---Make that 52 years.

---I heard that the steroids committee interviewed Andy Pettitte for three hours.

---Of course, it probably took him two hours to spell his name for the court stenographer.

---Andy's got a face that just screams "C minus average."

---Roger Clemens, we'd like to introduce you to the tires on the 5th Avenue Bus.

---If you get a chance, watch the fantastic PBS documentary on Sargent Shriver, who was the inventor of the Peace Corps. And apparently the flea soap.

Dinner last night: Roast beef sandwich from Clementine's.

Stupor Tuesday

I was hoping that my vote in the California Primary this morning would have been met with more fanfare. After all, as a "decline to state" voter, I got the right to ask for a Democratic ballot. And the actual chill that went down my spine when I punched the chad next to Hillary Clinton's name. But, I quickly reminded myself that I was not really voting for her as much as I was voting against Obama Bin Laden. Nevertheless, the whole thing was rather surreal. My voting place is in a synagogue. The electioneers working the table were even older than usual, which made me think that, given the setting, several had actually been at Moses' house for the High Holidays. When I asked for the requisite Democratic ballot, the old coot smiled broadly as if I was giving out 25 cent off coupons for Streit's Matzohs. I told him I was merely sampling the Kool Aid. It will be a long time before my refrigerator regularly features a smiley face pitcher on the top shelf.

Upon leaving the polling place, I realized that I was now guilty of doing exactly what I have chided others for doing. Not voting for someone, but voting against someone. But, I reconcile quickly that, if I were given better choices, I would not have to resort to such a hackneyed approach to my rights as an American.

While a Hillary vote was a major concession for yours truly, justification was not needed. I did not need to look further than the TV coverage of the Obama rally held at UCLA's Pauley Pavillion on Sunday. If I've already got a healthy list of 75 reasons why not to vote for Ba-lack Osama, I can now add about 50 more. And one big one. While His Majesty was not in attendance, his wife, Michelle, was, and I can predict that, if she does become First Lady, she will be one of the most hatest in history. Her speech was condescending, scolding, and shrill, as if you got in the wrong line at the DMV. She professed that she plans to have a big mouth when it comes to Washington, DC, and I thank her for the warning. From the snippets I saw of her UCLA appearance, she is thoroughly lacking in any class. She came off like Daniel Day Lewis' character in "There Will Be Blood." I think she drinks our milk shakes.

Of course, things went downhill after that, as they then trucked out Oprah, the sole founder of the Black Reich. The crowd cheered her entrance wildly as if she was emerging from a one-on-one conversation with God. She reminded people that she was not supporting Obama Bin Laden because he was Black, but because he was brilliant. Her nose, like her thighs, grew a little more. I'm astounded anew about how much credibility this overbearing slob continues to have in this country. If this keeps up, it will be a matter of time before fighter planes, adorned with her show's logo, start to bomb London all over again. I sense that, behind the scenes, she is orchestrating part of Ba-lack's campaign just like Angela Lansbury did in the first version of "The Manchurian Candidate." Of course, at the end of that movie, Angela's character wound up with a bullet in her head, and we can only hope that cinematic history can repeat itself in real life.

As this sardonic edition of "The View" continued, out came Caroline Kennedy, and I give her a pass for a momentary lapse of judgement as she remains the only member of the Kennedy family to show any level of civility and class. But then, in a truly bizarre moment, the next one to grace the stage was Maria Shriver, wife of the California governor, who just days before had announced his support of John McCain. My guess is that she and Aah-nold did not sleep in the same bed Sunday night. And perhaps that's a good thing. In the picture above, Maria appears to have developed an overbite. She should be wearing an oversized red sweater with a big A on it.

From what I could see on C-Span, the gathered throng was literally hypnotized by the hen party on stage. And, given that none of them uttered a single sentence of any substance, I once again thought of this country with sadness. Indeed, given our choices at hand, democracy is truly being wasted in America.

Yes, I voted for Hillary. No, I am not proud of it. I voted against Obama Bin Laden not because he is Black, but because he is green. No experience. Nada. Zilcho. Zip. I don't want to select a President because he will be different. I want to elect a President that will be smart and experienced and agenda-less. Ba-lack Osama may only be one of those three, and even that can be contested. I was asked over the weekend who would be my ideal candidate. I ticked off the names. Adlai Stevenson. Bobby Kennedy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. All dead. In many respects, just like the future of this country.

Yet, despite it all, if you've got a vote today, by all means please use it. But, at the same time, try to remember just how bad Kool Aid really is.

Dinner last night: Pot roast, mashed potatoes, and peas.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - February 4, 2008

Don't look up.

Dinner last night: Reuben sandwich from Cafe 50's.

My Top 25 Favorite Films: #9!!!

Meredith Wilson's "The Music Man" is arguably the best thing to ever come out of the Midwest, save for maybe Abe Lincoln. If it were not for this movie musical, I would probably ignore the state of Iowa altogether. It's the last musical that I will mention on this list, and that's because it is my all time favorite.

Wilson obviously knew about Iowa, because that's where he was born around the turn of the century. My guess is that he waited for many a Wells Fargo wagon in his time. This music composer kicked around Hollywood and network radio for most of his life, until he achieved his true watershed moment when "The Music Man" debuted on Broadway in 1957. Apparently, you couldn't get into the show for about two years, and those were the days when Broadway audiences were smart and could tell the difference between gold and crap.

Hollywood has a nasty history of recreating a Broadway musical on screen, but forgetting to include the stars that first authored the roles on stage. Angela Lansbury got dumped in favor of a croaking Lucille Ball for "Mame." Carol Channing got bypassed for the film version of "Hello Dolly," which opted instead for Barbra Streisand, who turned the whole thing into a hackneyed Yiddish production you might find at a local nursing home. Indeed, I'm betting there were some unsalient thoughts about replacing the amazing Robert Preston in the role of Professor Harold Hill. Maybe Frank Sinatra. Or perhaps Sammy Davis Jr., who could have sung "Y'all Got Trouble, my brothers." As a matter of fact, Cary Grant was approached and declined by saying that WB needed to go back to the source. So, in a rare stroke of genius, producers realized that Robert Preston was the only "Music Man" we should see. Sure, there have been others to do it on Broadway since. And, for some reason perhaps known only to aliens residing on Pluto, some idiot tried to remake the movie into a TV production with Matthew Broderick. Regardless, if you are to enjoy this musical wonderment, you have to see it with Robert Preston.

Like "Bye, Bye Birdie," I came to this movie as a kid. And, yes, I was equally addicted to the words, the music, and the performances. I would walk to school, singing the songs like some loon. And that included doing "Gary, Indiana" complete with the Ronny Howard-perfected lisp. CBS seemed to run this movie once a season, and I would be plopped down in front of the set days and weeks in advance. There was something about the town of River City and the very special summer they experience that captivated me. Perhaps, it was because my hometown of Mount Vernon, New York was slowly evolving into something very unspecial. For us, there would be no such thing as a boy's band. Instead, there would be gangs, riots, and hostility. If only our worlds could be about the ice cream social in the local park.

I try to visit "The Music Man" once a year. Usually around Independence Day, where it makes a great DVD double feature with "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Two years ago, the Alex Film Society in Glendale played it on a summer Saturday night, and the theater was packed. And people sang along. And cheered. The credits at the end unspool like a Broadway curtain call, and the hurrahs reached a crescendo with the final appearance of Preston. Indeed, over forty years after its initial release, I felt like I was seeing it for the first time all over again. And every time I watch it, I see something new. Or revel particularly in one single moment. After being on the Warner Brothers back lot, I could pick out actual locations that were used as River City in the movie. Once, while seeing it on DVD, I could pick out the Burbank hills in the background, along with some electrical power lines which probably didn't exist around the turn of the century.

The cast is first-rate, and none of them probably had finer film moments. Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Ronny Howard, Hermione Gingold, Paul Ford, Pert Kelton, and Mary Wickes (more about her appearance here in an upcoming post) are all incomparable. While everyone remembers the classic moments like "Trouble," "76 Trombones," and "Marian the Librarian," there really is not a weak musical number in the whole film. Take a look at one of my favorites, the blending and harmonizing of two completely different songs. It is as smooth as silk.

In the stage musical, there is a ballad sung by Marian called "My White Knight." It's okay, but Wilson very smartly replaces it on screen with another much better song, "Being In Love." Shirley Jones' rendition of it is magical. You also probably have heard some of the other clever quirks embedded in the music. For instance, "76 Trombones" and "Goodnight, My Someone" are essentially the same tunes except played at different tempos. And, of course, the fabulous "Till There Was You" is one of the best romantic duets ever filmed for the silver screen. Coincidentally, "Till There Was You" was the only song in history that the Beatles ever covered.

I've seen the musical in a Broadway revival with Craig Bierko and Rebecca Luker. I've seen it done at the Hollywood Bowl with Eric McCormick and Kristin Chenoweth. I'll probably see it another half dozen times mounted with a variety of performers. But, at the end of the day, it is the movie that shines best. With Robert Preston as the brightest light.

Dinner last night: Knockwurst platter at Billy's in Glendale prior to the Alex Film Society's presentation of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Politricks

Since the state of California has renamed my independent voting status as a "Decline To State" voter, I actually can request a Democratic primary ballot this coming Tuesday. This means I am the unenviable choice of punching my chad for one of these two goofballs shown to the right.

In an effort to make sure that I make an "intelligent" selection, I decided to tune into the debate held Thursday night at the Kodak Theater. They say knowledge is power. But, in this case, knowledge renders me powerless. Because, after two hours of watching this dribble from who are allegedly the finest candidates one political party has to offer, I can easily understand why half of our national population stays home on the first November Tuesday every four years. Our country is officially in one very tight embrace with mediocrity. We are now receiving exactly what we deserve. And, in a shout out to the heavenly beyond, I can finally tell my father he was right.

They all stink!

First of all, our election process now resembles something akin to a season's boxset of Desperate Housewives. Tons of twists and turns, but absolutely not a single issue resolved. Actually, Marc Cherry does a better job tying up a season full of Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross than our news media does in analyzing an election. When I was a kid, I remember televised debates as very much serious discussions. They were usually anchored by one of the top TV journalists of the day, like Cronkite or Brokaw. Now, you get a media event with softball questions phoned in from some peckerwood in Nebraska. Wolf Blitzer looks like a high school chemistry teacher proctoring a midterm exam. All in all, you get more useful information from this week's TV Guide.

This latest debate was further hampered by its placement at the Kodak Theater. The audience shots of various celebrities made it look like they all showed up early for the Oscars. Of course, most of Hollywood makes a big deal of who is supporting which candidate, as if there is any justification for knowing that Ugly Betty wears a Hillary button. These people all make tons of money, so, in reality, it should make no difference to any of them whether the next President is Hillary Clinton or Calista Flockhart. Stevie Wonder was spotted in the audience, and now I want to be a fly on the wall when he goes behind a curtain to vote. We saw Diane Keaton wearing something from the Annie Hall wardrobe department, and it's clear she missed her 1978 wake-up call. Nevertheless, Hollywood showed up in droves, and it was a darn good night to be a jewelry thief in Bel Air. They cheered wildly every time their "favorite" candidate uttered some bon mot on the set which looked like it had been borrowed from "The Price is Right." I was waiting for Ba-lack Osama to get up and try his hand at a game of Plinko. They also included several shots of Chelsea Clinton, and given the fact that Bill and Hillary are reasonably decent looking folks, I have no idea how she could be their child. She always has a scrunched up look on her face as if somebody is cooking up a pot of cabbage.

I listened to everything both of them had to say, and realized that substantive political discussions in this country have gone the way of Silly Putty and Reggie Bars. Indeed, the whole night's exchange did nothing more for me than just illuminate how totally unprepared either one of these clowns are to lead this country. In her TV ads, Hillary keeps talking about her 35 years of experience, a factoid that had me scratching my head. I went on-line and discovered that she's been married for 33 years, so I am supposing that she's also including two years of dating Bill as well.

Meanwhile, Obama Bin Laden is presenting himself as a breath of fresh political air, but, realistically, he hasn't had a sincere public moment in 10 years. From my vantage point, he's as dangerous as Jimmy Carter was when Americans elected him becuase he was the panacea for Watergate. Smiling Jimmy turned out to be one of the worst Presidents of the 20th Century and now he's really nothing more than a sober Ty Pennington with a college degree. Ba-lack as the most powerful leader in the free world? I wouldn't trust him to valetpark my car. He wants to unite the country, but he can't even get the Kennedy family on the same page.

This is not to say that the other side of the nominee fence is any better. In a world which is increasingly imperfect, our own leaders are the most flawed of all. And, sadly, we can't even come to expect an intelligent two-hour discussion from any of them.

Yeah, Dad, I know. I hear you.

Dinner last night: Asian Beef Salad at the Farm.

Revisionist History 101

You may be looking at the illustration on the right and wondering whether this is another one of those Christmas frivolities that I wrote in early December and never posted. Well, yes and no. This is about something that happened on Christmas Eve, but the thought has stayed with me ever since. While my holiday cough may finally be gone for the most part, I'm still playing mental knock hockey with what I heard that night right up to February 1.

On Christmas Eve, the high winds blew out the power in both my neighborhood and the area surrounding my church. This precipitated the quick scheduling of a truly candlelight service, as the church was fully illuminated by about 100 carefully placed votifs. Seventy people showed up and it was quite nice. Until we heard from our guest soloist for the evening. She's one of those singers who projects a lot better than she can sing. She hits the rafters more frequently than she hits the right notes. But, nevertheless, she was to be our musical interlude for the evening.

This warbling kuncklehead sang "Let There Be Peace on Earth" and invited us to sing along with her. But, as I surveyed the lyrics, I noticed that she was changing the words as she went along. Every time the word "brother" was to be sung, she instead inserted the word "sister." The same thing happened when she ran across the word "man." It became "woman." I shook my head in a quick moment of disbelief. At the end of the service, I was surprised she didn't whip off her bra and burn it on one of the many candle displays stationed around the altar.

A few days later, I'm back in church and we are still singing Christmas carols. Our pastor makes a half-serious suggestion that the title of one such hymn should be "God Rest Ye Merry Gentle People." Disbelieving head shake #2. I have one more to add to my basket in the Great Screwball Harvest of 2008.

I'm thinking about whoever authored these tunes one or two centuries ago. They were creating something from their soul and probably would be humbled by the fact that we are still singing these words years and years later. But, because they no longer fit the politically correct landscape of this bizarre country, the lyrics can be freely altered. I wasn't offended by the notion that the songs should have encompassed the female gender as well as the males. I was appalled that the artwork of the people that wrote these time-honored classics was tampered with because of somebody's own agenda.

People look at music, films, and even TV from years ago and chastise them for being sexist and rascist. All of a sudden, these snippets of greatness should be downgraded because we are not allowed to infer that they might be now the slightest bit biased. I know one African-American TV writer here who vehemently refuses to see "Gone With the Wind." Why? Because he thinks the depiction of Blacks in the movie are stereotyped. For Pete's sake, it is set during the Civil War. Like it or not, there was slavery in the South. MGM did not make this up. It was indeed in all the papers. The "Our Gang" shorts from the 30s are not shown now as much as they were when I was a kid. Why? Because characters like Farina and Buckwheat are now considered degrading to both people and breakfast cereals. I even recently read an essay that inexplicably assailed Fred Astaire for dancing with an African-American shoe shine guy in "The Band Wagon." Are we to believe that there have never been African-American shoe shine men in our country?

Hollywood back then wasn't necessarily making fun at anybody by using these stereotypes. Unfortunately, whether the ultra-politically correct loonies in our nation like it or not, these stereotypes are closer to the truth than not. Blacks did primarily have jobs as maids and butlers and shoe shiners. There were "aw shucks" goofball kids like Farina and Buckwheat, because, admittedly, black children didn't always get the advantages of education enjoyed by others. Films and TV didn't make it up. They were simply reflections of the country at the time.

A couple of years ago, the Fox Movie Channel dug deep down into their film vaults to show some of the vintage Charlie Chan movies starring Warner Oland. I gobbled them up, especially since it was a huge memory rush for me as I used to watch these films with my grandmother ages ago. After a month or so, the Chan features disappeared from the Fox schedule. Why? Because Fox was "inundated" with complaints from Asian civic groups. Okay, as if there have never been Asians in this country who spoke like Charlie Chan. The terrific dry cleaner I have out here in LA still calls me "Mister Wren" and I half expect him to utter the same kind of fortune cookie sayings that Charlie used to. "Tolerance like stain on shirt. Must keep at it." Again, we are asked to totally deny what was simply, at one juncture, a fact of life.

I am half-German and I guess I should be angry that part of my ethnicity is always sinister in Hollywood movies crafted during the 40s. But I am not, because I know those films were a product of those times. We were at war. Germany was our enemy. Case closed. I got it.

So, now we are going to change Christmas songs written two centuries ago? At what point do they start looking at the New Testament of the Bible and make suitable alterations there? Come on, couldn't Jesus have also been a woman? After all, when you saw pictures from behind, the long hair... The Bible never specifically states the following: Jesus Christ, a 30 year-old lanky 5 foot, 10 inch male, and a graduate from Bethlehem Middle School... Hey, maybe, in the mind of our Christmas soloist, Jesus was really a woman. Yeah, let's change that, too.

And, just to show you that revision can go in all sort of different directions, I'm going to start my own campaign. I will now start espousing the idea that 11 of Jesus' disciples were married. Why else would a bunch of men spend all their time hanging out together? Because, at home, there was some nagging wife reminding him constantly to fix the hole in the fishing net and to clear the palm fronds from the front walk.

Of course, I'm not mentioning Judas Iscariot. Because, beyond the betrayal of Jesus, he was so tormented and suicidal that he just had to be gay.

If you think my notions are ridiculous, well, then, so probably are yours.

Dinner last night: Homemade minestrone soup.