What does the effort in Louisiana to draft a porn star to run for U.S. Senate against David Vitter -- admitted adulterer (and unindicted "john") -- remind you of?
FOR ME, this (note off-color language):
PEOPLE THOUGHT that Animal House was just a funny, whacked-out movie. Shows what they know.
"No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."
For some reason, I got this feeling last night that I should do a post on Kristy Dusseau. So I did.
The last update on her website had been a couple of weeks ago; the news wasn't so good, and I wondered what the deal was. Well, this morning we got the terrible, heartbreaking answer.
Kristy died Saturday morning. She fought a hell of a fight, but the human body and medical science have their limits.
MORE THAN ONCE -- and, most recently, Sunday -- I have compared Kristy's suffering to that of Job in the Old Testament. Well, Job's story had an ending:
7 And it came to pass after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and with your two friends; for you have not spoken rightly concerning me, as has my servant Job. 8 Now, therefore, take seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up a holocaust for yourselves; and let my servant Job pray for you; for his prayer I will accept, not to punish you severely. For you have not spoken rightly concerning me, as has my servant Job." 9 Then Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, went and did as the LORD had commanded them. And the LORD accepted the intercession of Job. 10 Also, the LORD restored the prosperity of Job, after he had prayed for his friends; the LORD even gave to Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then all his brethren and his sisters came to him, and all his former acquaintances, and they dined with him in his house. They condoled with him and comforted him for all the evil which the LORD had brought upon him; and each one gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. 12 Thus the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his earlier ones. For he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. 13 And he had seven sons and three daughters, 14 of whom he called the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. 15 In all the land no other women were as beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brethren. 16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; and he saw his children, his grandchildren, and even his great-grandchildren. 17 Then Job died, old and full of years.
LIKE THE SUFFERING of Job, Kristy's has come to an end. It is the Christian hope that everything Kristy lost here on earth now will be replaced many times over in Heaven.
The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord make his face to shine upon her and be gracious to her, the Lord lift up His countenance upon her and give her peace.
It's Carnival time again in New Orleans, and this is what I can show you, courtesy of the Times-Picayune, of the satirical Krewe du Vieux parade that rolled Saturday night through the French Quarter.
This year's theme: "Stimulus Package." If your mind is in the gutter contemplating that, you have a fair-to-middling mind picture of the parade. But it's probably too tame.
I'VE SEEN the photo streams of Krewe du Vieux 2009, and I'm here to tell you that the Picayune's video report was highly sanitized. Let's just say that what the krewe's floats depicted -- graphically -- in chicken wire and paper-mâché would mean speedy arrest for anyone who tried it in any Bourbon Street bar or strip club.
In Omaha, the floats would be enough to earn someone a trip to central booking. And if any kids were along the parade route, krewe members could expect getting hit, too, with contributing to the delinquency.
In New Orleans, though, Krewe du Vieux is considered satirical and ribald. No more, no less.
ONE THING, THOUGH. If a bigger-than-life depiction of "Fannie Mae" performing fellatio on Mr. Monopoly is merely "ribald," and an equally gigantic instance of statuesque anal sex falls under "satire," you'd have to figure that obscenity is a phrase devoid of meaning in the City That Care Forgot.
One other thing, while I'm at it. You have to wonder what kind of city New Orleans might be if its "cultural elites" put the energy and money they just expended on paper-mâché beejays into things like education and civic improvement.
You also have to wonder what Our New Economic Reality has in store for such a place . . . and such people. After all, all Marie Antoinette wanted Frenchmen to eat was cake.
Vinyl -- as in vinyl long-playing records -- is still back.
This means I've maintainined my retro cool since we last checked in on the trend toward once again putting needle to record groove. Like I always say, stick with what you really, really like long enough . . . and it'll be cool again, and so will you.
HERE'Sthe latest take, from the Omaha World-Herald, on the audio tech that's as old as Edison:
Some people are trying to restock their old collections. Some like the experience of putting a record on a turntable. Others just like the sound.
But no matter the reason, people are buying a lot more vinyl, whether new or used, whether new releases or classics.
Vinyl's popularity has been growing for a few years, but it appears to be spiking.
Nielsen SoundScan, the company that tracks music purchases, reported that sales of new vinyl albums grew to 1.88 million in 2008, an increase of 89 percent over 2007. The number was the highest since SoundScan started tracking sales data in 1991.
Folks like Spencer Munson of Lincoln are leading the charge. Munson, known in the clubs as DJ Spence, has nearly 4,000 vinyl titles.
"I had a dad who was really into records, so that's where I started. He had all the classics: (Led) Zeppelin, the Beatles," he said. "I filled in the gaps with his collection, and as I was building this collection, I started realizing there were other things that I was falling in love with."
After collecting rock records, he started going after funk, disco and soul. A large part of his collection is also made up of 12-inch hip-hop singles that he samples while DJing.
The vinyl craze is welcome news to local outlets.
Two of every three new vinyl purchases were made in independent record stores, SoundScan reported. In Omaha and Lincoln, Homer's stores have seen huge increases in combined new and used vinyl sales in the last three years, including an 85 percent increase in 2008, said general manager Mike Fratt.
Bands and serious music collectors started the trend, but now it's reaching the masses. Until recently, consumers didn't see a lot of new vinyl in stores, so they assumed it wasn't available.
In the first days of CDs, record labels stopped manufacturing vinyl so people would embrace the new technology. Meanwhile, some indie bands continued to release material on vinyl and some distributors manufactured classic titles on vinyl so that DJs would be able to spin them. And that caught on, Fratt said.
"As people started going into thrift shops and used record stores and started buying '60s and '70s titles on vinyl, they got a chance to experience those records in their actual form. The excitement for the music started to grow from there and . . . it all kind of snowballed into one big avalanche," he said.
Bands such as Radiohead are pushing the trend. The release of Radiohead's "In Rainbows" was highly publicized last year, and the album was available in a special vinyl edition. It was the top-selling vinyl record in 2008.
More recently, indie band Animal Collective released "Merriweather Post Pavillion" on vinyl in January, a full two weeks ahead of its release on CD. Record stores sold out almost immediately.
"It was an eye-opener to how much people now are thinking of vinyl first or exclusively," said Neil Azevedo, manager of Drastic Plastic in the Old Market.
GROOVY! He says, surrendering major cool points. Sigh.
It's been quite a while since we checked in on our friend Kristy Dusseauin Michigan.
When last we checked in on Kristy -- who's fighting an ongoing battle with the aftereffects of the bone-marrow transplant that saved her from a rare, virulent form of leukemia -- she was back in the hospital. Since, she has been in and out of the hospital . . . then out for a long time, and able to move into a house with a good friend.
Steroids have taken a toll on Kristy, even as they have kept her graft-versus-host disease at bay. And, at last posting on her website, she was back in the hospital yet again.
Yet again. Can you even begin to imagine?
Begin to imagine, if you will, the psychological toll . . . the physical toll . . . the financial toll and every other possible toll. Whenever I think of Kristy Dusseau, I flash back to the Old Testament book of Job. Sure enough, today's first reading at Mass was from . . . Job:
1 Is not man's life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of a hireling? 2 He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages. 3 So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been told off for me. 4 If in bed I say, "When shall I arise?" then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. 5 My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs; my skin cracks and festers; 6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle; they come to an end without hope. 7 Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.
AND HERE I SIT, fancying myself miserable as I fight the beginnings of what promises to be a nasty head cold -- eating hot soup, sucking on zinc lozenges, inhaling nose spray and sipping on double-strength hot toddies I've dubbed "cold hooch."
Yeah, right. I'm sufferin', man. You bet.
I've said it before, and I'll keep on saying it: You wouldn't wish any of what Kristy has suffered on your worst enemy. You just wouldn't.
If you have a second, perhaps you'd like to say a prayer for Kristy. I suspect she really could use all of those she can get.
This is a time when nefarious forces have seized the levers of power in America, and they're working toward the Clampdown.
AT LEAST that's the word today from talk radio. Perhaps these shadowy forces of doom have their sights set on 3 Chords & the Truth. This is worrisome.
Gotta keep moving. Don't know where they are or if they're after me yet.
In that light, I don't have time to tell you much about the Big Show this week. I hope you'll understand.
I CAN TELL YOU, though, that this episode's music is electric -- and that a good time will be had by all. It's 3 Chords & the Truth . . . but keep that on the QT around people you're not sure about.
The Omaha World-Herald -- which recently raised the ire of gay activists everywhere by refusing a same-sex wedding announcement for "business reasons" -- nevertheless seems to have found "business reasons" aplenty to run a rather (ahem) large ad for horny-making strips in its Thursday "Money" section. BACK IN MY DAY, the high-school set was afire with tales of the miraculous properties of Spanish fly -- a magical potion that could get even the most zit-infested adolescent male laid. The tale less told, of course, was that it also could kill you.
But Spanish fly is so 1970s, you know? And even in the '70s, you'd be (cough) hard pressed to find display ads for the stuff in even the wildest alternative rags. You know, the ones that had all the advertising for abortion clinics and concerts sponsored by NORML.
The times, they are a-changin'. Now it's the formerly staid old maid of Nebraska journalism that's making money off Americans' utter desperation to get their freak on. The newspaper that won't run words like s***, f***, a**, d***, P**** or even "poop" has discovered the go$pel of Stimul-x(TM), the postmillennial aphrodisiac that supposedly gives you all the horn dog with half the kidney damage, tummy rumbles, convulsions or death.
THE BUSINESS of newspapers -- especially now -- is business, and if there's a buck to be made, it's in telling Americans how to get laid. Or, at least, in selling them the belief they're going to finally get laid.
Oh, the taboos that tumble when the high and mighty realize they have a business model that's truly f***ed.
People speaking, and singing, through the ether. Voices and music in the air. Mass communications -- instantaneous.
Broadcasting.
Music continuing on the ether. It started 100 years ago this year, in San Jose, Calif., the dream of Charles Herrold -- on again and off again from atop the Garden City Bank Building. Where once there were only the dots and dashes of Morse Code, suddenly into radio operators' headphones came music and voices.
PASSING THE TIME . . . through the ether, they called it a century ago.
Passing the time. Through the ether, from miles away. New friends discussing the news, talking about the weather and playing records on the Victrola.
Regular broadcasts began in 1912, with the water-cooled carbon microphones wired directly into the spark-gap transmitter. And so was, in effect, everybody listening to such a marvel.
A century later, San Jose Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy is on a mission to make sure "Doc" Herrold isn't forgotten. Not this year.
Charles Herrold was an inventor and teacher who opened the Herrold College of Wireless and Engineering on San Fernando in 1909. As Herrold and his students noodled with the emerging technology, they would play phonograph records into microphones so they could test their radio signals.
Turns out the noise was a hit among crystal set hobbyists, who were suddenly picking up music and voices on their contraptions.
"They'd call up Doc Herrold," [retired San Jose State journalism professor Gordon] Greb says, "and say, 'Hey, could you play some more songs?' " No word on whether the requests came with dedications.
Herrold kept up the broadcasts until the United States entered World War I, at which time the government commandeered the air waves. By the war's end, newfangled vacuum tubes rendered obsolete Herrold's system, which relied on arcing electrical currents.
Herrold struggled financially after the war and gave his KQW to a church in return for a job at the station. The church eventually laid him off and sold the station to a company that renamed it KCBS, of which perhaps you've heard.
It's a genuine Silicon Valley story: An innovator makes a bet on technology and comes to market before the market is ready. Disruptive technology throws him off his game. He fails, but his original concept changes the world.
Of course, we like to end our Silicon Valley failure stories with a comeback. Herrold's story didn't work out that way. He finished his working years as a janitor at the Oakland shipyards. He died alone in 1948 in a Hayward nursing home, not far from where Greb was enjoying a budding radio career.
TRAGIC, but somehow appropriate. The father of radio as we know it met a fate emblematic of broadcasting today -- talented individual innovates, builds an audience, gets thrown away by the industry he helped build, fades into obscurity. Whadda ya know, even in radio, everything old is new again . . . including eating its own.
The ingrates who bought KQW from Herrold fired Herrold from KQW sometime in the 1920s. By the early 1940s, KQW was the Columbia Broadcasting System affiliate for the Bay Area and became the CBS-owned and operated KCBS in 1949.
By 1945, Doc Herrold's creation had grown so that it could produce a half-hour docudrama celebrating KQW's 33rd anniversary, calling dibs by nearly a decade on the 25th anniversary of commercial broadcasting's birth with KDKA in Pittsburgh. An entire industry had grown out of Herrold and his radio students chatting about the news and playing the Victrola into a carbon microphone wired up to a spark-gap contraption.
TODAY, those days -- the 1930s and '40s "golden days" -- mark something of a high-water mark for the radio arts in America.
And a century on from those first rudimentary broadcasts to California wireless enthusiasts . . . the industry Doc Herrold dreamed up has cast aside all the innovators who trod his path and filled his shoes.
Ten decades on, the wireless languishes in a high-tech rest home of its own making . . . alone, destitute and waiting for the last sign off.
This is San Jose calling. Is anyone there?
Los Angeles calling. Is anyone there?
New York calling. Anyone there?
Chicago calling. Is anyone listening?
This is the wireless station at Omaha calling. Is anyone there?
But, on the other hand, if President Obama really is turning us into a communist country, there will be a tremendous upside. Glenn Beck will disappear shortly, off for a lifelong vacation at a state insane asylum.
Which, come to think of it, might be a game plan -- communist or not.
Today, all across the Gret Stet, Louisianians raptly pore over the morning paper and the Internet sports sites to read all about the LSU Tigers' top recruiting class in football.
That's the top story on The Advocate's website down in Baton Rouge because, especially in these dark days for print journalism, newspapers want readers. And the editors have a good idea what Louisiana readers (the few . . . the proud . . .) want to read. MEANWHILE, down and over . . . in the column of itty bitty headlines . . . we find this: "LSU cuts sketched."Sketched? Let's try something pithier and closer to the point.
Maybe something like "LSU's doomsday budget plan."
Here's what that story says about the cuts being "sketched" at the Ol' War Skule while everybody is paying attention to the football team:
The LSU System on Wednesday contended nearly 2,000 employees would be laid off if worst-case scenario budget cuts discussed by the governor’s office come to fruition.
State Commissioner of Higher Education Sally Clausen also announced Wednesday that college officials plan to meet next week with leaders of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration to flesh out issues concerning budget cuts for the upcoming 2009-2010 fiscal year.
LSU System President John Lombardi said in a phone interview Wednesday that the worst-case scenario — chopping 30 percent of LSU’s budget — would decimate many campuses and shut down many academic programs.
The LSU system includes the main Baton Rouge campus, four other academic campuses, a law school, an agricultural center, two medical schools and the state’s public hospitals.
Patient care at LSU hospitals also would suffer, Lombardi said.
“What you end up with is a lot of lost people,” Lombardi said. “When you lose people, you lose everything. That’s what universities are all about.”
Lombardi said it was important to attach a strongly worded letter along with the numbers concerning the 18-to-30-percent range of cuts for which the Jindal administration asked campuses to prepare.
“When you’re looking at spreadsheets, your mind kind of glazes over,” Lombardi said. “We wanted to say, ‘This is really what you’re looking at.’”
Lombardi is referring to the loss of about 650 faculty and 1,250 support employees on LSU campuses statewide, according to the report. This would change LSU’s mission and wipe out its national competitiveness, he said.
Just on the main Baton Rouge campus, the cuts would amount to closing one entire academic college, he said. The results would include fewer academic majors, larger class sizes, more expensive tuition and greater lengths of time to graduate, the report states.
“While some may imagine that the budget reduction processes in other states protects LSU against dramatic relative decline in effectiveness, they are quite wrong,” Lombardi states in the report.
States such as Missouri, Maryland and Oregon are not planning any higher education cuts despite large state budget shortfalls, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A LOSS of 2,000 jobs if the worst comes to pass. Devastating consequences for academic programs and students trying to graduate on time . . . or just pay their tuition bills.
And look -- other states with equally bad budget problems that aren't cutting higher education. Where do you think, in the future, a shrinking number of jobs is going to end up going?
To Louisiana, a poor, ignorant state busy devastating higher ed? Think again.
What that "insignificant" story in The Advocate ultimately means, Louisiana, is that more and more of you had better be making plans to visit your kids and grandkids in Texas . . . or Georgia . . . or North Carolina . . . or Missouri . . . or Nebraska.
Pretty much anywhere but the Gret Stet, which, come to think of it, ain't so gret a-tall.
The sense of entitlement some people feel knows no bounds. And then you have politicians, who are in a class by themselves.
Even as an economic plague sweeps across the land, you have at least one Nebraska legislator who thinks lobbyists' ability to buy him and his colleagues -- and their votes -- needs to keep up with inflation.
Nebraska state lawmakers are considering a bill that would raise campaign spending limits and raise limits on gifts from lobbyists to state officials.
A citizen watchdog group wants to know why Nebraska is increasing the amount spent on politics at a time when most of the nation is cutting back.
Lobbyists have been entertaining state senators on golf courses for years, but rising greens fees and other costs could soon make that impossible.
State Sen. Kent Rogert has proposed raising the gift limit from $50 to $100.
"I'd like to point out that very little costs $50 anymore, including a round of golf," he said. "It hasn't been changed in 20 years."
Rogert said that it's not just golf he's focusing on. Other popular gifts, including football and concert tickets, have also become more expensive.
"In changing the limits from $50 to $100, we're merely trying to improve the process with more common sense, ease and efficiency," Rogert said.
"The perception of raising a gift limit does not fly well with the public," said Jack Gould of Common Cause.
He questions why lobbyists need to give gifts at all, calling it simply a way to buy access to the political process.
"Officials have to be on guard about Greeks bearing gifts," he said.
I DIDN'T think it possible, but there you are. Nebraska has produced a legislator more brazen in his quest to be bought -- or at least rented for a while -- than the Gret Stet of Loosiana. Let us revisit that gem of a story which, by the way, comes courtesy of KETV television in Omaha:
"I'd like to point out that very little costs $50 anymore, including a round of golf," he said. "It hasn't been changed in 20 years."
Rogert said that it's not just golf he's focusing on. Other popular gifts, including football and concert tickets, have also become more expensive.
ROGERT OBVIOUSLY has his priorities as a public (wink, wink) "servant," but being an honest broker for his constituents isn't one of them. What, does Craigslist now have a category for "Senators Seeking Lobbyists"?
I don't knowwhether, as a Louisianian by birth, to be relieved or, as a Nebraskan by choice, to hang my head in shame. But I do know what needs to be done with Sen. Kent Rogert.
I can't say exactly what that is, being this blog tries to be at least somewhat family friendly, but I'll allow that it involves a 9-iron.
Barack Obama is giving the plunderers of Wall Street a stay of execution, and those who prefer a nice chablis with their thievery are too stupid and greedy to accept it and just shut up.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday imposed $500,000 caps on senior executive pay for the most distressed financial institutions receiving federal bailout money, saying Americans are upset with “executives being rewarded for failure.”
Obama announced the dramatic new government intervention into corporate America at the White House, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side. The president said the executive-pay limits are a first step, to be followed by the unveiling next week of a sweeping new framework for spending what remains of the $700 billion financial industry bailout that Congress created last year.
The executive-pay move comes amid a national outcry over huge bonuses to executives heading companies seeking taxpayer dollars to remain afloat. The demand for limits was reinforced by revelations that Wall Street firms paid more than $18 billion in bonuses in 2008 even amid the economic downturn and the massive infusion of taxpayer dollars.
“This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success,” Obama said. “But what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”
The pay cap would apply to institutions that negotiate agreements with the Treasury Department for “exceptional assistance” in the future. The restriction would not apply to such firms as American International Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., and Citigroup Inc., that already have received such help.
“There is a deep sense across the country that those who were not ... responsible for this crisis are bearing a greater burden than those who were,” Geithner said.
“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”
Mr. Reda said only a handful of big companies pay chief executives and other senior executives $500,000 or less in total compensation. He said such limits will make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms.
“It would be really tough to get people to staff” companies that are forced to impose these limits, he said. “I don’t think this will work.”
THEN I GUESS the government will just have to flat-out nationalize the firms and put government functionaries in those jobs. After all, how could they do a worse job than the capitalist pigs?
They couldn't do a worse job than a crowd that has paid itself outlandishly while flying the economy into the ground. These executives should count themselves fortunate, indeed, to still have jobs at all.
And they should get down on their knees and thank God -- or their good fortune, or whatever -- they live in the United States of America, where rarely do the masses take to the streets, ransack stately office towers and drag executives such as James F. Reda onto the pavement below.
They should get on their knees in gratitude that they -- at least for the time being -- don't live in a country where the bottom rail emphatically places itself atop the fence as the new overseer of revenge. Where we don't . . . yet . . . have true People's Courts proclaiming the erstwhile titans of finance and industry guilty, guilty, guilty of capital crimes of capital and immediately remanding them to the jurisdiction of a court not of this world.
Before humans were so progressive and advanced, marriage was a sacred thing -- a sacrament. An outward sign of an internal, sanctifying grace.
Looking at it this way, matrimony was a manner of a man and a woman helping one another to get to Heaven. It was how men and women got to model God -- model the Holy Trinity, with the love of the first two persons producing a third . . . a child.
"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son."
BUT THAT'S NOT important now. What's important is whether we can entertain the masses with matrimony -- whether there's a buck (or several million) to be made off it.
Marriage: It's not the stuff of love and life anymore. It's a programming concept for reality television. It's a profit center for network bean counters.
On television in this postmodern age, according to The Live Feed, it's nothing sacred:
The network has ordered a new series from the producers of "Top Chef" that puts lovelorn singles into arranged marriages. The show introduces four adults age approximately 25-45 who are anxious to get married but have been unsuccessful in their search for a mate. Their friends and family select a spouse for them, and the newly paired couple exchange marital vows. The series follows their marriages.
The rest of the details for the project, whose early working title is "Arranged Marriage," are being kept under wraps.
The series is from Jane Lipsitz and Dan Cutforth of Magical Elves, which launched "Project Runway" on Bravo and produces the network's "Top Chef."
It is the second series greenlighted by CBS' new reality chief Jennifer Bresnan, following the recent order for "Block Party," a competition among neighboring families.
The series order for "Marriage" shows CBS is not shying away from reality projects that might draw a few pointed editorials in the wake of the network's previous envelope-pushing social experiment, the fall 2007 series "Kid Nation."
The marriage series comes on the heels of CBS' success with traditional scripted fare this past fall, led by hit new procedural "The Mentalist."
Although it might seem surprising that CBS would opt for a potentially hot-button series when it's on a roll with tried-and-true concepts, reality TV is unlike scripted. New dramas and comedies can get away with showing merely the slightest twist on a decades-old format. But reality shows are built on taking chances with social experiments and competitions giving viewers something they have not seen before.
I CAN'T WAIT for the sequel. Maybe something involving divorce and firearms.
After all, on "Network," Howard Beale bought the farm on live television. Assassinated because of slumping ratings.
Paddy Chayefsky, when he was writing it, thought "Network" was a biting bit of satire. The movie trailer branded it "outrageous."
As a high-school student in 1976, I know we all thought so. We were trying to figure out how to get in the "R" movie.
I SAW "Network" again last night on Turner Classic Movies. I wonder, had he lived, how Chayefsky would have reacted to his unintended role as prophet. (Note: This IS an "R" movie, with "R" language.)
FOR THAT MATTER, I wonder how television -- how today's mass media -- would deal with a prophet being prophetic? Even a mad prophet like Howard Beale.
It kills me to say this as a 30-plus-year Bruce Springsteen fanatic, but "Glory Days" was a highly ironic song to close his uberhyped Super Bowl halftime show.
I am old enough to remember how the Boss used to do "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and "Born to Run." I saw Bruce and the E Street Band live when we all were in our prime.
AFTER WATCHING the Boss live -- via television cameras that neither blink nor filter a performance through wistful admiration before pronouncing a verdict -- a couple of things are pretty damned clear:
* The Boss is almost 60 years old.
* He can jump and run, or he can sing, but he can't do both anymore.
The 59-year-old Springsteen and his E Street Band opened with "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," then without pause ripped through "Born To Run" and "Working on a Dream," before winding up the set with "Glory Days."
Springsteen, dressed all in black, came out Sunday night with the considerable challenge of packing the bombastic energy of one of his rollicking, three-hour concerts into an abbreviated Super Bowl halftime set.
That turned out to be no problem. He had fireworks, an expansive stage, about 1,000 people on the field and help from a Raymond James Stadium crowd equipped with small flashlights.
A five-piece horn section helped saxophonist Clarence Clemons blast out "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," and a gospel choir came on stage to back Springsteen, his wife and bandmate, Patti Scialfa, and guitarist Steven Van Zandt during "Working on a Dream," the title song from his 24th album.
I GUESS SUPER SUNDAY'S overhyped miniextravaganza could have just been an instance where Springsteen's charm and enthusiasm were there, but his voice and execution weren't. But then again, let's face it, there's not a spring chicken anywhere in the band.
Clarence Clemons -- the Big Man -- just turned 67, for Pete's sake. That makes him old enough to be this middle-aged killjoy's father.
Hell, he could be in the Rolling Stones . . . another group well past its prime.
WE ALL, at some point, have to reinvent ourselves. Bruce has done it more than once, then unreinvented, then reinvented the reinvention. Big-ass bands are so '70s, and the members of this big-ass band are heading toward 70.
And unless it's Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, or maybe Benny Goodman or Duke Ellington, supersized sounds don't strike me as the soundtrack to a depression. What we need now is a Woody Guthrie for our national postmodern funk.
That's a bill the Boss can still fill . . . without resorting to taking hits of herbal tea or oxygen. And without subjecting his adoring fans to unintentionally ironic performances of "Glory Days."
I had a friend was a big baseball player back in high school He could throw that speedball by you Make you look like a fool boy Saw him the other night at this roadside bar I was walking in, he was walking out We went back inside sat down had a few drinks but all he kept talking about was
Glory days well they'll pass you by Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye Glory days, glory days
Well there's a girl that lives up the block back in school she could turn all the boy's heads Sometimes on a Friday I'll stop by and have a few drinks after she put her kids to bed Her and her husband Bobby well they split up I guess it's two years gone by now We just sit around talking about the old times, she says when she feels like crying she starts laughing thinking about
Glory days well they'll pass you by Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye Glory days, glory days
Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight and I'm going to drink till I get my fill And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it but I probably will Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture a little of the glory of, well time slips away and leaves you with nothing mister but boring stories of glory days
THE BOSS had a hell of a lot longer run of glory days than most of us ever could dream of. They passed me by God knows how long ago. And they pass legends by, too.
Maybe it's time for Bruce to enter his Wisdom Days. With a little luck and a lot of grace, those never pass you by.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go off somewhere, kick a garbage can and cry. My youth is dead, and the rest of me is getting there.
Robert Cerasoli arrived in New Orleans full of piss and vinegar, legendary tales of his Massachusetts inspector-general derring-do heralding his coming to the land of swamps, bayous, hurricanes . . . and graft.
HE GAVE IT his best shot. But stressed out, ground down and with his health in a shambles, Cerasoli has stolen quietly away from the fever swamps with, no doubt, a keen appreciation for how Edward Pakenham felt.
But unlike the British general who died trying to conquer la Nouvelle-Orléans in 1815, at least Cerasoli got out alive. Barely.
For Cerasoli, 61, the resignation marks an anxious end to a four-decade career in public service, but also allows him to lay down a heavy burden. In interviews before and after recent surgery to remove growths in his neck, and leading up to his decision to resign, Cerasoli agonized over the pressure to meet the lofty expectations of corruption-weary New Orleanians.
"I keep feeling this vicious guilt," he said. "I've never given up on anything before in my life."
His Blackberry buzzed with an e-mail: "Don't give up -- we need you." It came from a person he had met once, and who had no inkling of Cerasoli's predicament, or the emotional wallop her message would deliver.
Cerasoli started pondering his health and his future in December, after doctors removed two growths from his neck they had feared were cancerous. The growths were benign, but he and doctors discovered two more growths, also potentially cancerous. Those will have to be removed as well.
Before that first surgery, a stranger had approached Cerasoli in one of his favorite haunts, the ornate lobby of Le Pavillon hotel. She told him how much the city needed him.
As she walked away, Cerasoli hid his face and broke into a quiet sob. Such praise has both touched and distressed him.
"It's just so hard, you know, the pressure," he said, wiping away tears. "It's enormous. It's onerous. I get that all the time, people walking up to me on the street. . . . It's wonderful, seeing the rising expectations of the people here. But the last thing I want to be is the next 'last, best hope for New Orleans.'
"It's not about me. It's about building the office," he said, repeating what has become a mantra even as he has become an unlikely celebrity in a job that in many places would be held by an anonymous functionary.
Building the office has proved far tougher than Cerasoli envisioned. And the challenges that remain -- even the basic work of clearly defining city agencies, budgets and policies -- are more daunting than a successor might suspect. After 17 months, Cerasoli said, the office still needs to double its staff and garner basic tools and access to records.
Still, Cerasoli's experience here has opened a valuable view into the inner workings of a mysterious municipal apparatus.
"On a difficulty scale of one-to-10, it's a 10. I would compare it to governments I've looked at in the developing world," said Cerasoli, who has given lectures about corruption in such Third World countries as Sierra Leone and Swaziland. In New Orleans, he said, "information technology is in a terrible state. Getting access to information people regularly access in other places is a major problem. Public documents aren't being made public, if they exist at all.
"And I don't think the city government truly understands what the inspector general is supposed to do -- and might provide more resistance as it becomes more clear," he said.
RESISTANCE. Just imagine, being that this was what the gummint was doing before it figured out the threat posed to its peculiar institutions:
Though Cerasoli had fully expected the challenge of his career in New Orleans, he was in for a few shocks. The Nagin administration at first offered him a $250,000 budget -- a ludicrously low figure, he said. In Massachusetts, he had overseen a budget of $3 million and a staff of 49.
He spent his first four months working alone in university offices Wildes provided. Eventually, he secured a $3.2 million appropriation from the City Council; permission to hire his own attorneys, a move fought by the Nagin administration; and, most important, a charter change guaranteeing a permanent revenue source.
"But every one of those things was a big fight," Cerasoli said. "And after we got the money, we couldn't spend it, because everything we bought had to go through the city's purchasing process."
Requests ranging from pencils to lease agreements took weeks or even months to snake through the Nagin administration's approval process. Inquiries often produced excuses: "The computers are down," or "So-and-so is on vacation," or "We can't find your paperwork."
"There was always that mysterious hand there, that made you wonder if somebody was trying to stop it," Cerasoli said.
THE CITY might have gotten an idea, however, of the threat posed by just one office of honest men and women doing their damn jobs . . . against all odds. People who generally care and -- Heaven forfend! -- government that generally works could pose a threat to the ethic governing New Orleans since Iberville and Bienville first stepped off the boat and into the gumbo mud.
Indeed, people who generally care and government that generally works could undo everything the Gret Stet of Loosiana has stood for since it was the Gret Colony of Loosiana. And if everything that's near and dear to the Gret Stet of Loosiana is endangered, the culture and the people of the Gret Stet of Loosiana is in mortal peril!
Most assuredly, if godless Yankee interlopers, troublemakers and agitators are allowed to have their way with all their fancy investigatin', what will they come after next? The strippers on Bourbon Street? Drive-through daquiri stands? Pat O'Brien's and hurricanes?
Go cups?
IT WOULD ONLY BE a matta a time -- if dese damn Yankees get dey way -- befo' ersters on da haf shell, burld crawfish, swimp burls and Ellisyoo football disappear fum da face uh da ert!
And if dese Yankees find da whole uh Loosiana guilty, then ain't dis a indictment of our country in general?
I put it to you, Cap.
Ain't dis a indictment uh aw entire Ameruhcan society?
Well . . . y'all can do what'cha want to us, but we won't sit here an lissen ta y'all badmowf da U-nided State uh Ameruhcuh!
Gennulmuns!
LIKE DEAN WORMER, the Omegas, Faber College, Gen. Pakenham and the whole damn British Army, Robert Cerasoli never stood a chance. His successors won't stand a chance. Basic civil society doesn't stand a snowball's chance.
Not a chance. Not when they're up against Loosiana Lampoon's Aminal City.
What does it sound like when the clock strikes 12 and Michael Phelps' swim career turns into a pumpkin?
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
SEE, IT SEEMS, in this day and age, somebody's always there with a camera when you decide to do something really stupid. If you're Joe College Student, the photos usually just end up on Facebook for your parents and potential employers to see.
If you're swim sensation Michael Phelps, the photos of you making sweet love to a bong full of "cannabis" (as the Brits say) merely end up in a Fleet Street tabloid or three.
And by the time this s***storm blows over, The Phelps may well want to once again indulge in something just a little stronger than Ovaltine.
Extra! Extra! Read all about the news of the stupid in the News of the World:
THIS is the astonishing picture which could destroy the career of the greatest competitor in Olympic history.
In our exclusive photo Michael Phelps, who won a record EIGHT gold medals for swimming at the Beijing games last summer, draws from a bong.
The glass pipes are generally used to smoke cannabis.
And after sporting chiefs announced laws which mean four-year bans for drug-taking, Phelps’ dreams of adding to his overall 14 gold medal tally at the 2012 games in London could already be OVER.
Those dreams seemed the last thing on his mind when he puffed from the bong during two days of partying with students last November, a quiet time in the swimming calendar when athletes would not expect to get tested for drugs.
One party-goer who witnessed the star’s behaviour told the News of the World: “He was out of control from the moment he got there.
“If he continues to party like that I’d be amazed if he ever won any more medals again.”
Phelps’ aides went into a panic over our story and offered us a raft of extraordinary incentives not to run the bong picture.
It was on November 6, weeks after his Beijing triumph, that 23-year-old Phelps surprised students at the University Of South Carolina in Columbia by showing up unannounced at a house party.
He was visiting Jordan Matthews, a girl he was secretly seeing who was a student there.
Our source revealed: “Michael came to visit Jordan but ended up just getting wasted every night. (snip) The US Olympics Committee, who have pledged to clamp down on drug use, refused to comment, as did USA Swimming and Phelps’ coach Bob Bowman.
More surprising still was the World Anti-Doping Agency’s refusal to comment, given that they introduced the four-year ban on sport’s drug users.
Phelps, who earned £4million last year in endorsements, has resumed training for the 2012 games.
But there were fears about his commitment when, weeks after the bong incident, he began dating former stripper Caroline Pal.
Phelps is represented by marketing giant Octagon, which works with huge brands such as Mastercard and HSBC. They admitted proven cannabis use would be “a major taint” on Phelps’ character.
Spokesman Clifford Bloxham offered us an extraordinary deal not to publish our story, saying Phelps would become our columnist for three years, host events and get his sponsors to advertise with us.
In return, he asked that we kill Phelps’ bong picture. Bloxham said: “It’s seeing if something potentially very negative for Michael could turn into something very positive for the News of the World.”
SOMETHING TELLS ME Omaha just was handed a really, really strong bargaining position for getting repeat business in 2012 as the site for the Olympic swim trials. We may be the only city interested.
The Los Angeles Times, a Tribune paper, announced it would be lopping 300 positions -- 70 of them in the newsroom -- while folding its California section into the main news pages.
WEEK BY WEEK, the news gets grimmer for the dying newspaper biz and the bloodlettings continue apace. Week by week, subscribers to America's newspapers -- those what remain, that is -- find a lot less newspaper in the driveway.
And there lies the rub.
To cut costs, newspapers cut back on staff and news hole, which means the subscriber gets a lot less news for the same (or more) money. Which means more and more subscribers figure there's no percentage in subscribing to the local rag, which puts it further in the financial hole . . . which necessitates more cuts, which means less value to readers, which. . . .
You get the idea. I think the technical term is "death spiral."And it all goes back to the simple truth that, especially in hard times, people are reluctant to spend something for nothing.
Except for video poker or the lottery.
GIVEN THE LONG ODDS facing traditional media in this country, journalists at the L.A.Times and The Dallas Morning News might see that one-in-a-million shot as a significantly safer bet than the one upon which they've staked their livelihoods.
