Seth Kupchick's Blog: Bet on the Beaten
October 7, 2023
The Idolmaker Vs. Eddie and the Cruisers
I'm not sure if I saw The Idolmaker when it came out, but I wanted to because all my friends did, and talked about it a lot. I even remember the theater where it was playing in Westwood, and the cardboard life size stand ups through the window in the lobby painted in gold lightbulbs. There was an excitement around The Idolmaker that made me feel like I was missing out on an experience more than a movie. It was before I turned into a teenage film snob and had the poisonous thought everytime I saw a creative interesting movie that this would be the last one and that there were only so many great stories that could be told and given how many movies had been made by the eighties this was finite.
I thought The Idolmaker was going to be a great movie like A Star Is Born, that was my first favorite. My friend, Sean Barth, would sing the lines, "I gotta story to tell," like his life depended on it. Then, Lisa Kurstin, and a couple of other girls would get into the act, and it became a must-see movie, but I'd missed out on opening day weekend, and a couple of weekends after that, and you had to be quick in L.A. to be in the know on a movie, and I'd missed out. Well, The Idolmaker came up in a group text with Sean Barth and Josh Mills the other day, two people familiar with the film, and Sean being its biggest fan/advocate/worshipper. He wrote a text saying how excited he was to see it was streaming and he was going to watch it with his wife, who'd never seen it. "I wonder if it will stand up," he wrote, and I paraphrase. I knew how much he liked it and should've been happy he was happy to see it, but I couldn't do that.
"Stand up?!?" I wrote and I'm afraid I startled him through our high beam tele-electronic communication devices like I often do with my criticism, but I said it sincerely. I may have missed the first run, but I was clearly let down by it, so I must've seen it somewhere, even if it was on Z channel, which it would've been. Given the hype, I would've made a point of watching it but except for the posters of the Idolmaker's pop sensation, Caesare, plastered throughout the city on a PR campaign 2/3 through the movie, I had no memory of seeing it. Still, I felt bold enough to say to The Idolmaker's biggest fan that he didn't have to worry about "his movie" standing the test of time, because it had nothing to stand on. I wrote this comparing it to Eddie and the Cruisers which is my Idolmaker, and a movie I'd throw in the same basket, so I was getting pompous on Sean by comparing The Idolmaker to Eddie and the Cruisers. Sure, it's a B-movie but so is The Idolmaker no matter what my expectations were at 11 years old. but it pains me to call Eddie and the Cruisers a B movie it's so close to my heart.
Josh Mills gave me a You Tube link, knowing I don't stream, and I watched The Idolmaker last night, from beginning to end. I did this not only for myself but for Sean Barth, because I'd hurt him through my critique, and I couldn't even clearly remember seeing it. It was one of those films passed down to me through cultural transmission, and for the kids in my grade - and I stress grade - it was a movie we'd all remember. It may have been forgotten by those a year or two younger than us - it was that specific. I had a lot of mixed feelings watching it last night, but The Idolmaker was better in a B movie way than I was giving it credit for largely for capturing the look and feel of the early '60s, so I'm writing this blog out of a penance for Sean. But before I'm too repentant let me also add I'm not entirely ready to go back on my original critique.
For starters, the 11 songs that fill the movie are all forgettable, and it's laughable that the record industry thought that there'd be at least a couple of hits from it like on Grease or Saturday Night Fever. The music was hackneyed at best, and if it's supposed to show the Idolmaker who pens them as brilliant it fails, but I'm not sure it is trying to do this. It wants us, the audience, to think he's talented, and that if it wasn't for his looks, he wouldn't be such a loser in the music business, but he doesn't seem that talented. His dancing is hammy, and the songs are too. This was a core dilemma that Eddie and the Cruisers solved, because Eddie was a rebel rocker with a poetic vision that was linked to Rimbaud's Season in Hell and how I learned of this book. He was ahead of his time and the songs were memorable - especially Dark Side.
The Idolmaker's character is much more ambiguous than Eddie Wilson. He wants to be famous, but there must be at least ten lines about him balding in his late twenties and that being the kiss of death for a pop star. And in spite of his talent (?), we're not led to believe The Idolmaker wants anything but the American dream - to make his first-generation Italian parents proud of him, even if his dad is a gangster. So, the movie could've painted him as an immigrant's son wanting the American dream, finding it, and then wanting artistic salvation, but it doesn't do this. The Idolmaker is no Eddie Wilson because he doesn't really seem to want to do anything but make it, even though there's a line or two on a dinner date with a fellow publicist about how Tommy B, his first discovery, is too stupid for his songs. "Is that because he's your substitute personae," the publicist should've asked, but she didn't.
The Idolmaker doesn't tackle the central question of who is the protagonist and what's in it for him? He becomes a PR genius, of sorts, and this alone drives him on, but is it to make his creations more famous than him, and then to control them, out of a kind of jealousy? It's hard to tell but the movie inches towards this dark portrait, in spite of its lightness. I kept wanting the Idolmaker to be a tortured ugly man who must find these pretty boys to take his place and that it's through them he finds his creative spirit, but the movie doesn't do this. It just kind of wallows in his fame as songwriter/impresario/PR genius, who is single mindedly obsessed on fame, but there is no fall from grace, or redemption. There is nothing for The Idolmaker, but a suburban manor.
And yet, I enjoyed watching it. I wasn't sure if it was entirely for the nostalgia of my friends who loved it or for who I was when it came out and what it meant to my friends, or what it meant to be a moviegoer in 1980, when the world was unfolding before me, and I was dreaming of my teenage life, that had barely begun. Ray Sharkey gave a great performance, I think, and though I'm angry that his character wasn't better written, that doesn't mean he didn't do the best he could with the script and the songs. He squeezed as much life out of the role as possible, and without him there wouldn't have been a movie, though Peter Gallagher is bizzare as Caesare. I'll give him a thumbs-up for a truly weird performance, but it does verge on camp. I don't think Gallagher did anything so ambitious ever again and may have followed this up with Summer Lovers, a movie I watched way too many times on Z channel.
There were a couple of cringey and/or nightmarish scenes of Tommy B, the Idolmaker's initial hitmaker. He practically rapes a 14-year-old girl in a car, after his first gig. The Idolmaker breaks it up only to give her this horrible speech about "What did she think she was doing?" and basically, blames her for Tommy B.'s atrocious behavior, before making her swear never to tell anyone about it and gives her a signed record to shut her up. Then, he chastises Tommy, but it doesn't seem to be coming from a moral position but as a business proposition, because they are on the verge of making it through bribes to local radio stations. I'm really not sure what the movie was trying to say except that anyone could have a hit record if they had the right look, voice, song, and charisma, and a PR machine, but it wasn't saying this cynically. In some ways, The Idolmaker was ahead of its time in seeing that America was obsessed with an almost "reality TV" like star not really good at anything, but I don't think that's what the filmmakers or screenwriters were trying to say, and I guess why it's a B movie.
The only character that has any emotional depth is Caesare the busboy living with his grandma and a good Italian kid until the Idolmaker gets his claws on him. There is something of a shattered toy in Peter Gallagher's expression, as he plays an innocent with no character or identity in real life, forced to take on the conceit of a rock n' roll star with animal sexuality and intrigue. I think if the movie went deeper here it would've been an interesting study in identity since he was about the age when a lot of teenagers have an identity crisis and want to be someone else, but in this case, he's being trained to be someone else, and the end result is weird. He is a manipulated doll in the Idolmaker's world, which should be tragic, but it's impossible to feel anything for these characters, and maybe that's the problem with the film. It doesn't really tell the story of rock n' roll except from a PR side, which is a behind the scenes study in reading the zeitgeist.
Eddie and the Cruisers are the zeitgeist. We may not feel anything for the characters because it too is a B movie, but we feel the story and it's clear - Eddie is a visionary and he's on a path to immortality through an early death that his bandmates don't understand, save "Wordman," who writes his songs. The Idolmaker covers the same early '60s terrain as Eddie and the Cruisers and maybe does this just as well, but the myth is harder to understand. Unless you want to be an agent, which many of my friends wanted to be, but that is a very L.A. child thing to want to be and doesn't reek of an archetypal myth.
I thought The Idolmaker was going to be a great movie like A Star Is Born, that was my first favorite. My friend, Sean Barth, would sing the lines, "I gotta story to tell," like his life depended on it. Then, Lisa Kurstin, and a couple of other girls would get into the act, and it became a must-see movie, but I'd missed out on opening day weekend, and a couple of weekends after that, and you had to be quick in L.A. to be in the know on a movie, and I'd missed out. Well, The Idolmaker came up in a group text with Sean Barth and Josh Mills the other day, two people familiar with the film, and Sean being its biggest fan/advocate/worshipper. He wrote a text saying how excited he was to see it was streaming and he was going to watch it with his wife, who'd never seen it. "I wonder if it will stand up," he wrote, and I paraphrase. I knew how much he liked it and should've been happy he was happy to see it, but I couldn't do that.
"Stand up?!?" I wrote and I'm afraid I startled him through our high beam tele-electronic communication devices like I often do with my criticism, but I said it sincerely. I may have missed the first run, but I was clearly let down by it, so I must've seen it somewhere, even if it was on Z channel, which it would've been. Given the hype, I would've made a point of watching it but except for the posters of the Idolmaker's pop sensation, Caesare, plastered throughout the city on a PR campaign 2/3 through the movie, I had no memory of seeing it. Still, I felt bold enough to say to The Idolmaker's biggest fan that he didn't have to worry about "his movie" standing the test of time, because it had nothing to stand on. I wrote this comparing it to Eddie and the Cruisers which is my Idolmaker, and a movie I'd throw in the same basket, so I was getting pompous on Sean by comparing The Idolmaker to Eddie and the Cruisers. Sure, it's a B-movie but so is The Idolmaker no matter what my expectations were at 11 years old. but it pains me to call Eddie and the Cruisers a B movie it's so close to my heart.
Josh Mills gave me a You Tube link, knowing I don't stream, and I watched The Idolmaker last night, from beginning to end. I did this not only for myself but for Sean Barth, because I'd hurt him through my critique, and I couldn't even clearly remember seeing it. It was one of those films passed down to me through cultural transmission, and for the kids in my grade - and I stress grade - it was a movie we'd all remember. It may have been forgotten by those a year or two younger than us - it was that specific. I had a lot of mixed feelings watching it last night, but The Idolmaker was better in a B movie way than I was giving it credit for largely for capturing the look and feel of the early '60s, so I'm writing this blog out of a penance for Sean. But before I'm too repentant let me also add I'm not entirely ready to go back on my original critique.
For starters, the 11 songs that fill the movie are all forgettable, and it's laughable that the record industry thought that there'd be at least a couple of hits from it like on Grease or Saturday Night Fever. The music was hackneyed at best, and if it's supposed to show the Idolmaker who pens them as brilliant it fails, but I'm not sure it is trying to do this. It wants us, the audience, to think he's talented, and that if it wasn't for his looks, he wouldn't be such a loser in the music business, but he doesn't seem that talented. His dancing is hammy, and the songs are too. This was a core dilemma that Eddie and the Cruisers solved, because Eddie was a rebel rocker with a poetic vision that was linked to Rimbaud's Season in Hell and how I learned of this book. He was ahead of his time and the songs were memorable - especially Dark Side.
The Idolmaker's character is much more ambiguous than Eddie Wilson. He wants to be famous, but there must be at least ten lines about him balding in his late twenties and that being the kiss of death for a pop star. And in spite of his talent (?), we're not led to believe The Idolmaker wants anything but the American dream - to make his first-generation Italian parents proud of him, even if his dad is a gangster. So, the movie could've painted him as an immigrant's son wanting the American dream, finding it, and then wanting artistic salvation, but it doesn't do this. The Idolmaker is no Eddie Wilson because he doesn't really seem to want to do anything but make it, even though there's a line or two on a dinner date with a fellow publicist about how Tommy B, his first discovery, is too stupid for his songs. "Is that because he's your substitute personae," the publicist should've asked, but she didn't.
The Idolmaker doesn't tackle the central question of who is the protagonist and what's in it for him? He becomes a PR genius, of sorts, and this alone drives him on, but is it to make his creations more famous than him, and then to control them, out of a kind of jealousy? It's hard to tell but the movie inches towards this dark portrait, in spite of its lightness. I kept wanting the Idolmaker to be a tortured ugly man who must find these pretty boys to take his place and that it's through them he finds his creative spirit, but the movie doesn't do this. It just kind of wallows in his fame as songwriter/impresario/PR genius, who is single mindedly obsessed on fame, but there is no fall from grace, or redemption. There is nothing for The Idolmaker, but a suburban manor.
And yet, I enjoyed watching it. I wasn't sure if it was entirely for the nostalgia of my friends who loved it or for who I was when it came out and what it meant to my friends, or what it meant to be a moviegoer in 1980, when the world was unfolding before me, and I was dreaming of my teenage life, that had barely begun. Ray Sharkey gave a great performance, I think, and though I'm angry that his character wasn't better written, that doesn't mean he didn't do the best he could with the script and the songs. He squeezed as much life out of the role as possible, and without him there wouldn't have been a movie, though Peter Gallagher is bizzare as Caesare. I'll give him a thumbs-up for a truly weird performance, but it does verge on camp. I don't think Gallagher did anything so ambitious ever again and may have followed this up with Summer Lovers, a movie I watched way too many times on Z channel.
There were a couple of cringey and/or nightmarish scenes of Tommy B, the Idolmaker's initial hitmaker. He practically rapes a 14-year-old girl in a car, after his first gig. The Idolmaker breaks it up only to give her this horrible speech about "What did she think she was doing?" and basically, blames her for Tommy B.'s atrocious behavior, before making her swear never to tell anyone about it and gives her a signed record to shut her up. Then, he chastises Tommy, but it doesn't seem to be coming from a moral position but as a business proposition, because they are on the verge of making it through bribes to local radio stations. I'm really not sure what the movie was trying to say except that anyone could have a hit record if they had the right look, voice, song, and charisma, and a PR machine, but it wasn't saying this cynically. In some ways, The Idolmaker was ahead of its time in seeing that America was obsessed with an almost "reality TV" like star not really good at anything, but I don't think that's what the filmmakers or screenwriters were trying to say, and I guess why it's a B movie.
The only character that has any emotional depth is Caesare the busboy living with his grandma and a good Italian kid until the Idolmaker gets his claws on him. There is something of a shattered toy in Peter Gallagher's expression, as he plays an innocent with no character or identity in real life, forced to take on the conceit of a rock n' roll star with animal sexuality and intrigue. I think if the movie went deeper here it would've been an interesting study in identity since he was about the age when a lot of teenagers have an identity crisis and want to be someone else, but in this case, he's being trained to be someone else, and the end result is weird. He is a manipulated doll in the Idolmaker's world, which should be tragic, but it's impossible to feel anything for these characters, and maybe that's the problem with the film. It doesn't really tell the story of rock n' roll except from a PR side, which is a behind the scenes study in reading the zeitgeist.
Eddie and the Cruisers are the zeitgeist. We may not feel anything for the characters because it too is a B movie, but we feel the story and it's clear - Eddie is a visionary and he's on a path to immortality through an early death that his bandmates don't understand, save "Wordman," who writes his songs. The Idolmaker covers the same early '60s terrain as Eddie and the Cruisers and maybe does this just as well, but the myth is harder to understand. Unless you want to be an agent, which many of my friends wanted to be, but that is a very L.A. child thing to want to be and doesn't reek of an archetypal myth.
August 11, 2021
Jerry Dipoto Sucks
Spoiler Alert: This post is for baseball fans, and especially Mariner fans.
Jerry Dipoto has been the GM of the Mariners for five or six years, and is a failure. You wouldn't know that by listening to local sports radio, 710 KIRO, but any GM, who has failed to take his team to the playoffs in that time, would most likely be fired, but the bar is low in Seattle, since the Mariners haven't made the playoffs since 2001, a standout season, and even the whiff of this makes people think Dipoto is great, and how easy for him, but he's not. The first thing that got me into sports radio was how easily the commentators would talk about $5,000,000 contracts for a year, as if it was a steal, and I felt like I was listening to Wall St. reports. Sure, sports is part of being an American, like Wall St., but the casual way they'd dismiss the numbers was amazing, and made me interested. I feel dumb for not having thought this yet, but it's starting to dawn on me that like Wall St., there are short sellers in our sports markets, and they are betting on failure. The Mariners have become one of those teams that fail so regularly that betting on their failure has become a safe bet, just like betting on the Yankees to win has also become a safe bet, and I'm starting to wonder if the markets are rigged. If, in fact, the Mariners are trying to lose, for the equanimity of the market, in the same way the Yankees are trying to win, and I think Dipoto bears this out.
I'm going to start with this season because it may have exemplified just how obvious the Mariners economic strategy has been. Here is Dipoto, with a minor league team that is overachieving, and may actually make the playoffs, in spite of low expectations FROM MANAGEMENT at the beginning of the season. They come off a great series against their division rival, the A's, and then have one of their greatest come from behind victories against the Astros on Monday night, in the first of a four game series. The team hasn't looked this good, since.... I don't know.... but they rarely look this good. The next day Dipoto trades one of the overperformers in the bullpen, and mind you it has been the bullpen that have kept the Mariners solid, and he gets.... not much in return. He promises that this is simply the first part of a bigger trade, after demoralizing almost everyone on the team, but alas, no bigger trade was in the works. He say's he's looking to the long term, but the team is on the verge of reaching their goal for a playoff appearance, let alone a World Series, for the first time in twenty years, and he decides to take a gamble that very few understand. The players are confused because they are too young to fathom how economic markets work, and are only looking to make the Mariners, and thereby themselves, better baseball players, and part of this has to do with being on a winning team. The Mariners were poised for a wild card on July 26th, and by the July 27th the team started a staid and steady decline reminiscent of so many other seasons, so that in the end no one will remember this one. If you're a bookie, and bet against the Mariners, then you are on the winning end again, but this has become a safe bet, like a Fortune 500 company. And I'm starting to think this is by design.
The best player the Mariners got in the trade was a second baseman by the name of Torro, but he may or may not amount to be much different than what they already had, like most players, who don't have all-star seasons, or gold gloves, and goes by the mind. They got a reliever by the name of Castillo but he has been shaky for a couple of weeks, and the bullpen has none of the accidental bravado it had before, and gives a fan no confidence. The only other player they acquired was a thirty-something reliever, who hasn't appeared in my many hours of listening, and may never. The day after the trade even the talk radio hosts were baffled by Dipoto's decision, to trade one of the most popular and successful reliever on the team, for effectively nothing, and voiced their confusion. "I thought all we'd be talking about today was about how the Mariners were on fire and won one of their greatest victories in the last five or six years, but instead we're lamenting a trade." 'Oh, don't worry, there's more to come,' hinted Dipoto, but nothing came, and now the team is almost guaranteed of not making the playoffs for the twentieth straight year, something almost impossible to do. It's easy to sell short against the Mariners.
Will Dipoto be fired for this? Of course not, because he's essentially a mafioso, doing what his masters want him to do. They are all betting on the Mariners losing, and they are getting their way. Even when the Mariners have a bunch of no-names, with a couple of die-hard veterans, they still manage to find a way to screw up an exciting season. Some in the media and on the team were mad that they didn't go after a big name to push them over the top, but in classic Wall St. style they one-upped this critique, and not only didn't go after the big fish, but sold away the little ones for next to nothing. I'm sorry, but the chemistry this club had was exciting, and it wouldn't have taken much to keep it together for ONE PLAYOFF RUN, but that was asking too much for the short sellers. "Castillo is going to give us more in the future," said Dipoto, but he looks like a dud, and never was much to start with, so what's this bullshit? It's short-selling because the fix is in. It makes me feel stupid for wanting to go to their games, but they know there is something enjoyable to watching a loser, and between the short selling, and duping the fans just enough, they'll get people into the park.
The Mariners on the field this year didn't know the rules of the game and they're being punished for it, from one of their relievers being pulled for an illegal substance on the ball, to Dipoto's obvious subversion of a winning team, for no future, that any sane fan can see. I feel like an idiot for not having seen this sooner, but it's clear now.
Jerry Dipoto has been the GM of the Mariners for five or six years, and is a failure. You wouldn't know that by listening to local sports radio, 710 KIRO, but any GM, who has failed to take his team to the playoffs in that time, would most likely be fired, but the bar is low in Seattle, since the Mariners haven't made the playoffs since 2001, a standout season, and even the whiff of this makes people think Dipoto is great, and how easy for him, but he's not. The first thing that got me into sports radio was how easily the commentators would talk about $5,000,000 contracts for a year, as if it was a steal, and I felt like I was listening to Wall St. reports. Sure, sports is part of being an American, like Wall St., but the casual way they'd dismiss the numbers was amazing, and made me interested. I feel dumb for not having thought this yet, but it's starting to dawn on me that like Wall St., there are short sellers in our sports markets, and they are betting on failure. The Mariners have become one of those teams that fail so regularly that betting on their failure has become a safe bet, just like betting on the Yankees to win has also become a safe bet, and I'm starting to wonder if the markets are rigged. If, in fact, the Mariners are trying to lose, for the equanimity of the market, in the same way the Yankees are trying to win, and I think Dipoto bears this out.
I'm going to start with this season because it may have exemplified just how obvious the Mariners economic strategy has been. Here is Dipoto, with a minor league team that is overachieving, and may actually make the playoffs, in spite of low expectations FROM MANAGEMENT at the beginning of the season. They come off a great series against their division rival, the A's, and then have one of their greatest come from behind victories against the Astros on Monday night, in the first of a four game series. The team hasn't looked this good, since.... I don't know.... but they rarely look this good. The next day Dipoto trades one of the overperformers in the bullpen, and mind you it has been the bullpen that have kept the Mariners solid, and he gets.... not much in return. He promises that this is simply the first part of a bigger trade, after demoralizing almost everyone on the team, but alas, no bigger trade was in the works. He say's he's looking to the long term, but the team is on the verge of reaching their goal for a playoff appearance, let alone a World Series, for the first time in twenty years, and he decides to take a gamble that very few understand. The players are confused because they are too young to fathom how economic markets work, and are only looking to make the Mariners, and thereby themselves, better baseball players, and part of this has to do with being on a winning team. The Mariners were poised for a wild card on July 26th, and by the July 27th the team started a staid and steady decline reminiscent of so many other seasons, so that in the end no one will remember this one. If you're a bookie, and bet against the Mariners, then you are on the winning end again, but this has become a safe bet, like a Fortune 500 company. And I'm starting to think this is by design.
The best player the Mariners got in the trade was a second baseman by the name of Torro, but he may or may not amount to be much different than what they already had, like most players, who don't have all-star seasons, or gold gloves, and goes by the mind. They got a reliever by the name of Castillo but he has been shaky for a couple of weeks, and the bullpen has none of the accidental bravado it had before, and gives a fan no confidence. The only other player they acquired was a thirty-something reliever, who hasn't appeared in my many hours of listening, and may never. The day after the trade even the talk radio hosts were baffled by Dipoto's decision, to trade one of the most popular and successful reliever on the team, for effectively nothing, and voiced their confusion. "I thought all we'd be talking about today was about how the Mariners were on fire and won one of their greatest victories in the last five or six years, but instead we're lamenting a trade." 'Oh, don't worry, there's more to come,' hinted Dipoto, but nothing came, and now the team is almost guaranteed of not making the playoffs for the twentieth straight year, something almost impossible to do. It's easy to sell short against the Mariners.
Will Dipoto be fired for this? Of course not, because he's essentially a mafioso, doing what his masters want him to do. They are all betting on the Mariners losing, and they are getting their way. Even when the Mariners have a bunch of no-names, with a couple of die-hard veterans, they still manage to find a way to screw up an exciting season. Some in the media and on the team were mad that they didn't go after a big name to push them over the top, but in classic Wall St. style they one-upped this critique, and not only didn't go after the big fish, but sold away the little ones for next to nothing. I'm sorry, but the chemistry this club had was exciting, and it wouldn't have taken much to keep it together for ONE PLAYOFF RUN, but that was asking too much for the short sellers. "Castillo is going to give us more in the future," said Dipoto, but he looks like a dud, and never was much to start with, so what's this bullshit? It's short-selling because the fix is in. It makes me feel stupid for wanting to go to their games, but they know there is something enjoyable to watching a loser, and between the short selling, and duping the fans just enough, they'll get people into the park.
The Mariners on the field this year didn't know the rules of the game and they're being punished for it, from one of their relievers being pulled for an illegal substance on the ball, to Dipoto's obvious subversion of a winning team, for no future, that any sane fan can see. I feel like an idiot for not having seen this sooner, but it's clear now.
April 21, 2021
An Accidental President
I like the Biden Presidency much more than I thought I would. He's the most socialist President we've had since Carter, and I feel the tides of populism are in his favor. I also think he's the first President we've had since Pappy Bush ('88), who isn't a cult of personality, and therefore can get more done under the radar. Whatever is good in him is coming out the end of his life, and this is a blessing for America, no matter his faults. I don't want him to die so he can continue to play the ghost of F.D.R.
Biden is an accidental President. I'm critical of how the Democratic Party maneuvered this victory, considering Sleepy Uncle Joe had no momentum in the primaries, but the truth is accidental Presidents are chosen by the Party - Truman and Ford are the two great examples, and Biden is kind of like them. The thing accidental Presidents have going for them is that there is no expectation, because of no cult of personality, and often their bland personae's are a front. Accidental Presidents also leave the stage awkwardly - Ford only served for two years, but was responsible for getting us out of Vietnam, and pardoning Nixon, who made him Vice President right when he was going down. Truman won a miracle victory against Dewey in '46 after ending WW II with a nuclear strike on Japan, and on the domestic front was F.D.R. But Korea dragged him down, and Truman chose not to run for reelection in '52, kind of like L.B.J. in '68, another accidental President, who got a lot done on the domestic front, but failed in Vietnam.
We're living in a surreptitious moment, still in the pandemic, and in the cover of night the world is changing, hopefully for the good.
In our moment, I think the Country is so wasted by the Trump soap opera, that ran daily, that the Republicans FINALLY can't defend themselves against the social agenda that they've feared like the plague since F.D.R., who wasn't a socialist, but like Biden or L.B.J., realized the mood was right for their legislation (Truman was the first Democrat to fail on Universal Health Care, so I'm not sure he was so good on the domestic front, but he tried.) The enemy is flat footed and even Sleepy Uncle Joe can run circles around them.
As for Gerald Ford, he was the quintessential accidental President, a center on the Michigan football team. Some consider him the last great Republican, tied to the New Deal politics of F.D.R., and an ethical man. Maybe if he won we'd have never had Reagan, an ex B-movie star, and the epitome of the cult of personality. But accidental Presidents are accidental for a reason, and they never enjoy the popularity of the cults of personality, even if their achievements are greater. They are those who get things done, while others set the themes.
As for Dr. Jill, I hear she has a calming influence on Sleepy Uncle Joe, who hopefully is being brain washed by his old Senatorial friend, Bernie Sanders, in his sleep.
Biden is an accidental President. I'm critical of how the Democratic Party maneuvered this victory, considering Sleepy Uncle Joe had no momentum in the primaries, but the truth is accidental Presidents are chosen by the Party - Truman and Ford are the two great examples, and Biden is kind of like them. The thing accidental Presidents have going for them is that there is no expectation, because of no cult of personality, and often their bland personae's are a front. Accidental Presidents also leave the stage awkwardly - Ford only served for two years, but was responsible for getting us out of Vietnam, and pardoning Nixon, who made him Vice President right when he was going down. Truman won a miracle victory against Dewey in '46 after ending WW II with a nuclear strike on Japan, and on the domestic front was F.D.R. But Korea dragged him down, and Truman chose not to run for reelection in '52, kind of like L.B.J. in '68, another accidental President, who got a lot done on the domestic front, but failed in Vietnam.
We're living in a surreptitious moment, still in the pandemic, and in the cover of night the world is changing, hopefully for the good.
In our moment, I think the Country is so wasted by the Trump soap opera, that ran daily, that the Republicans FINALLY can't defend themselves against the social agenda that they've feared like the plague since F.D.R., who wasn't a socialist, but like Biden or L.B.J., realized the mood was right for their legislation (Truman was the first Democrat to fail on Universal Health Care, so I'm not sure he was so good on the domestic front, but he tried.) The enemy is flat footed and even Sleepy Uncle Joe can run circles around them.
As for Gerald Ford, he was the quintessential accidental President, a center on the Michigan football team. Some consider him the last great Republican, tied to the New Deal politics of F.D.R., and an ethical man. Maybe if he won we'd have never had Reagan, an ex B-movie star, and the epitome of the cult of personality. But accidental Presidents are accidental for a reason, and they never enjoy the popularity of the cults of personality, even if their achievements are greater. They are those who get things done, while others set the themes.
As for Dr. Jill, I hear she has a calming influence on Sleepy Uncle Joe, who hopefully is being brain washed by his old Senatorial friend, Bernie Sanders, in his sleep.
Bob Stelton sucks
Wyman and Bob has to go. There is just nothing redeeming to it and it has run out of gas before another local host, the "Gas Man," could step in and put the pedal to the medal. The real problem is Bob "Stilted" Stelton, not Dave "Woozy" Wyman, who I enjoy poking fun at, but has more charm than Stelton could ever conjure up. In fact, Stelton has no charm, not even a negative charm. And worse, I question if the guy really is a die hard sports fan, or if he's just pretending to be, because he got a job in sports radio, and this is sad. He's the ultimate careerist, really. There are references to him being in a band called, "The Livin' End," and he sometimes talks about how little he was into sports at times in his life. If nothing else, a sports talk radio guy has to be the ultimate fan, and many of them were (are) sports journalists, but it's hard to imagine Stelton writing an interesting paragraph. I really don't know how he got this job, or even entered the field, but I want to say it was nepotism, even though I have no idea. He adds no insights or points of view to any of the conversations, and will occasionally take a hard line but even then he's never really controversial, or daring. He's so by the book he turns what can be a fun dialogue into sports about as entertaining as watching the stocks report on CNBC. He also isn't funny, or annoying, or anything, just a stick in the mud, who watches the games for his job, and adds nothing to the conversation. I'm really open to a mediocre show since this is filler for me during my first few hours of work, but even I have my limits and Stilted Stelton has tested them by being the most boring man alive with no strengths that I can see save a deep voice.
This brings us to Dave "Woozy" Wyman. I think he realizes the host is so bad at driving the show that he's trying to make up for it and he just can't do that. He's just too woozy, and can only talk football. Even worse, every time a story comes up about a player in any sport he lapses into a long memory about his own career that parallels it in some way. For example, the Mariner pitcher James Paxton got hurt for the umpteenth time early in the season, and I'd think any good sports talk guy could use the opportunity to talk about the tragedy of the career of Paxton, a player that promised to be great, had a fan base, threw a no hitter, but could never stay healthy enough to be remembered, a real biography. But what did Wyman do? He talked about his own injuries for five or ten minutes, and while it's impressive he was an NFL linebacker and a star (?) at Stanford, there is really nothing interesting about his career, but he usurped the time anyway never once bringing up Paxton, a fascinating failure. Wyman and Bob is a mistake and I hope the powers that be at 710 will take it off the air as soon as possible.
This brings us to Dave "Woozy" Wyman. I think he realizes the host is so bad at driving the show that he's trying to make up for it and he just can't do that. He's just too woozy, and can only talk football. Even worse, every time a story comes up about a player in any sport he lapses into a long memory about his own career that parallels it in some way. For example, the Mariner pitcher James Paxton got hurt for the umpteenth time early in the season, and I'd think any good sports talk guy could use the opportunity to talk about the tragedy of the career of Paxton, a player that promised to be great, had a fan base, threw a no hitter, but could never stay healthy enough to be remembered, a real biography. But what did Wyman do? He talked about his own injuries for five or ten minutes, and while it's impressive he was an NFL linebacker and a star (?) at Stanford, there is really nothing interesting about his career, but he usurped the time anyway never once bringing up Paxton, a fascinating failure. Wyman and Bob is a mistake and I hope the powers that be at 710 will take it off the air as soon as possible.
March 3, 2021
The Russell Wilson saga
I've been meaning to write this blog for weeks, but haven't had the time, so here it goes. I listen to lots of local Seattle sports radio and know that the format is fan friendly, so that the shows have to balance truth telling with optimism, but ultimately "Wyman and Bob" are in the pocket of the franchise, an adjunct of public relations, and that sports are forward looking because there's always next season. But it struck me as no minor coincidence that the same week Russell went public with his dislike for the Seahawks for the first time in his nine (?) years at the helm, that Kam Chancellor - Legion of Boom legend - said that the Seahawks were "haunted" for years after their infamous Super Bowl loss to the Patriots in 2015. This was something that I think a lot of Hawk fans felt after watching Russell throw an interception on the one yard line with twenty seconds left in the Super Bowl, rather than handing the ball off to Marshawn Lynch, the best rusher in the game, the Beast, and becoming winners of back-to-back Super Bowls. Instead, the Seahawks lost and haven't advanced to an NFC championship game since then, though they've won some wild card games.
Now if you listen to sports radio like I do you would've thought for the last six years that the Seahawks were on the cusp of reclaiming their past glory at some point during every season, and at the least were a Super Bowl contender, but they never really were, nor have they been since January, 2015, according to Kam Chancellor. Has the Russell Wilson/Pete Carroll era been a good one for the Seahawks? Yes, of course, this has been a historically miserable team who rose from the ashes to split Super Bowls, and threaten to be a dynasty, but they never made it because of that loss, and this became increasingly clear with every good but not great season. Now if the Seahawks were a one-off Super Bowl winner like many teams are who get hot for a season and all the pieces fall into place, this may not have been so hard to stomach, but given the Legion of Booms stature on defense, and the magical Russell Wilson with the Beast on offense, there really was the making here of a dominant team for the ages, or a dynasty, and at least three or four Super Bowl rings. I'm convinced if they had handed off to Marshawn two or three times at the one yard line, rather than throwing a dangerous pass into the middle of the field, this could've been a distinct reality, but this has been a haunted squad for years, and Russell wants out.
As for the fans, Wyman and Bob have been clear to point out that they've never heard so many angry texts at Russell, that amount to "good riddance." They are right to point out that without Russell the Hawks go from a playoff caliber team to a cellar dweller, but the 12s feel lied to and they are angry; they are angry at Russell Wilson for bottling up his emotions for so many years, and thinking he was someone he wasn't, and they are angry that the press has spun the narrative that the Hawks have been a legitimate Super Bowl contender for six years now, even though they haven't made it to the NFC championship game, a ridiculous rube after the 2015 season. I'm not sure there is a way to measure a fan's frustration at what it feels like to be on the verge of a dynasty, only to have it shattered in a play, and then to feel lied to about the significance of the play for so many years, but that's what Seattle commentators have done. I don't blame them, per se, but they haven't been truthful, and Dave Wyman saying, "It's hard to win in the NFL," doesn't sound like the words of a champion. I'd guess Pete Carroll is next on the chopping block for the 12s, but that will come to pass after a bleak season or two without Russell Wilson, because they are tied together in Hawk lore.
I also don't blame Russell Wilson for wanting to move on. He can go "cook" on an up and coming team who doesn't have any of the memories that plague the Hawks, and maybe make it to a championship game, or beyond. Sure, this is a perennially worthy playoff bound club, mostly because of Russell, but he'd bring that to any team he was traded to. Dave "Woozy" Wyman likes to lament, "What does Russell want?" Well, Dave, it's not a new center or a guard, but a new beginning. Russell is the American dream, a third round pick no one saw panning out, due to his size, and he doesn't want to watch the dream sink in Seattle. This is not a Super Bowl contender no matter how much the local media pumps up the narrative, and it hasn't been for a while. They had a couple of years there after the Super Bowl loss when the Legion of Boom was still intact, but like Chancellor said, "We were haunted." I think the dynamics of this club have been mischaracterized to the max by commentators like "Woozy" Wyman, who paint the Hawks as an oasis in the NFL, a dream for most players, and maybe it is better than playing on the Jets (lol). But Russell never sounded happy here after his first flush of glory, just a guy doing PR, and talking about being haunted isn't good radio.
Now if you listen to sports radio like I do you would've thought for the last six years that the Seahawks were on the cusp of reclaiming their past glory at some point during every season, and at the least were a Super Bowl contender, but they never really were, nor have they been since January, 2015, according to Kam Chancellor. Has the Russell Wilson/Pete Carroll era been a good one for the Seahawks? Yes, of course, this has been a historically miserable team who rose from the ashes to split Super Bowls, and threaten to be a dynasty, but they never made it because of that loss, and this became increasingly clear with every good but not great season. Now if the Seahawks were a one-off Super Bowl winner like many teams are who get hot for a season and all the pieces fall into place, this may not have been so hard to stomach, but given the Legion of Booms stature on defense, and the magical Russell Wilson with the Beast on offense, there really was the making here of a dominant team for the ages, or a dynasty, and at least three or four Super Bowl rings. I'm convinced if they had handed off to Marshawn two or three times at the one yard line, rather than throwing a dangerous pass into the middle of the field, this could've been a distinct reality, but this has been a haunted squad for years, and Russell wants out.
As for the fans, Wyman and Bob have been clear to point out that they've never heard so many angry texts at Russell, that amount to "good riddance." They are right to point out that without Russell the Hawks go from a playoff caliber team to a cellar dweller, but the 12s feel lied to and they are angry; they are angry at Russell Wilson for bottling up his emotions for so many years, and thinking he was someone he wasn't, and they are angry that the press has spun the narrative that the Hawks have been a legitimate Super Bowl contender for six years now, even though they haven't made it to the NFC championship game, a ridiculous rube after the 2015 season. I'm not sure there is a way to measure a fan's frustration at what it feels like to be on the verge of a dynasty, only to have it shattered in a play, and then to feel lied to about the significance of the play for so many years, but that's what Seattle commentators have done. I don't blame them, per se, but they haven't been truthful, and Dave Wyman saying, "It's hard to win in the NFL," doesn't sound like the words of a champion. I'd guess Pete Carroll is next on the chopping block for the 12s, but that will come to pass after a bleak season or two without Russell Wilson, because they are tied together in Hawk lore.
I also don't blame Russell Wilson for wanting to move on. He can go "cook" on an up and coming team who doesn't have any of the memories that plague the Hawks, and maybe make it to a championship game, or beyond. Sure, this is a perennially worthy playoff bound club, mostly because of Russell, but he'd bring that to any team he was traded to. Dave "Woozy" Wyman likes to lament, "What does Russell want?" Well, Dave, it's not a new center or a guard, but a new beginning. Russell is the American dream, a third round pick no one saw panning out, due to his size, and he doesn't want to watch the dream sink in Seattle. This is not a Super Bowl contender no matter how much the local media pumps up the narrative, and it hasn't been for a while. They had a couple of years there after the Super Bowl loss when the Legion of Boom was still intact, but like Chancellor said, "We were haunted." I think the dynamics of this club have been mischaracterized to the max by commentators like "Woozy" Wyman, who paint the Hawks as an oasis in the NFL, a dream for most players, and maybe it is better than playing on the Jets (lol). But Russell never sounded happy here after his first flush of glory, just a guy doing PR, and talking about being haunted isn't good radio.
December 24, 2020
Dave "Woozy" Wyman
A joy in my life is mindlessly listening to local sports radio for the first two or three hours of my shift at work, in what is mid-afternoon for most people, but mid-morning for me. I've now heard three versions of the same show and the only constant is the woozy voice of ex-NFL linebacker, Dave Wyman. Dave is one of those football players that no one will remember. A second rate linebacker on a dismal team, who never played a snap in a playoff game, and yet had a nine year career. The NFL is full of men like Wyman, who live for football, and indeed he is the soul of the game. I'm sure Dave would've played nine more years, if he could have, without ever seeing a Super Bowl ring, or a Pro-Bowl. And like many ex-jocks, he went behind the microphone when his career was over, but not without a stint at Merrill Lynch, and perhaps a stab or two at opening a car dealership. Dave also went to Stanford, where he may have been an All-American, and uses this to his advantage as being a "smart" jock. One day when Danny O'Neil went on about a geology class at the University of Washington for football players called, "rocks for jocks," Dave was quiet.
Dave works best as a color guy with insider knowledge, who can interject a good story from his NFL days, or offer real insight on the X's and O's of football strategy, and the good hosts defer to him on this. They also bring out the best of his old school attitude, while keeping his smarts intact. Danny O'Neil was the best fit for Dave, a Gen X sports host, who had real poetic insight when leading the show, unlike most sports guys. Danny was capable of having a big idea full of pop culture references that extended beyond sports, Dave and Jim Moore (more on him later), could keep up with, and the banter was charming. Then, Danny, Dave, and Moore, ended one day, and my heart was broken. I knew the new show could never be good, and so did Danny, who sounded heart broken at its ending. Danny was the pop culture loudmouth, Dave the woozy unrepentant jock, and Jim Moore, an old school newspaper guy, who had a penchant for gambling. Sure, Dave and Danny piled up on Jim Moore, because he was the kind of guy who should've had a sign on his back saying, "kick me," but Jim was the ultimate sports fan, and the more one listened to the show, the more likeable the old newspaper guy became, and the more it became clear that the trio had a schtick that worked. They used to call the show, "Misfit Radio," and it made sense.
Then, one day during a Friday Night Mariner game on location at Edgar's Cantina, Danny O'Neil announced it was their final show, and he was heart broken. It became Bob, Dave, and Moore, with Danny O'Neil going onto his own show, and the misfits were gone. "Who would've thought a guy with a stuttering problem, a football player whose taken hits to the head, and a color man who was a newspaper guy battling depression could make this work, but we did."
Bob Stelton is now talk radio's equivalent of a play by play guy and he's anything but a misfit; he's the kind of sports fan you'd meet in a bar and wish you'd never started talking to unless you wanted a recitation of the game you'd just watched. They stole the format of Danny, Dave, and Moore, but it had none of the same magic, save that Bob and Dave would pile up on Jim, but Bob didn't have the same love for him, that Danny did, and the show became mean. Still, the weight of Jim Moore and Dave Wyman created enough of an illusion that you were listening to Danny, Dave, and Moore, to make it a decent version of an oldie but a goodie, like a touring band with most of the members on stage, if not all, and it was good enough. Dave didn't have to say too much, and Jim Moore provided all the color, with his "Go Cougs" boyish charm and Zen like idiocy, that in some ways rivaled Bukowski at the race track. Sure, I wanted Danny O'Neill's penetrating mind as opposed to Bob Stelton's that was made of wood, but understood Danny may be too smart for most listeners, while Bob was right down their alley, and gave in to the new format.
A Week Later:
I let the show sit for a week, and it's toast. Dave can't lead a show as co-host, nor can he be the ass-hat Jim Moore was as a color man. Wyman is good at nostalgia and throwing in a story from his past like Coach on Cheers, but sports talk radio is not about jocks in the booth. It's about fans talking to fans. Dave loves the game but like a coach. I now only listen to Wyman and Bob to numb my mind.
Dave works best as a color guy with insider knowledge, who can interject a good story from his NFL days, or offer real insight on the X's and O's of football strategy, and the good hosts defer to him on this. They also bring out the best of his old school attitude, while keeping his smarts intact. Danny O'Neil was the best fit for Dave, a Gen X sports host, who had real poetic insight when leading the show, unlike most sports guys. Danny was capable of having a big idea full of pop culture references that extended beyond sports, Dave and Jim Moore (more on him later), could keep up with, and the banter was charming. Then, Danny, Dave, and Moore, ended one day, and my heart was broken. I knew the new show could never be good, and so did Danny, who sounded heart broken at its ending. Danny was the pop culture loudmouth, Dave the woozy unrepentant jock, and Jim Moore, an old school newspaper guy, who had a penchant for gambling. Sure, Dave and Danny piled up on Jim Moore, because he was the kind of guy who should've had a sign on his back saying, "kick me," but Jim was the ultimate sports fan, and the more one listened to the show, the more likeable the old newspaper guy became, and the more it became clear that the trio had a schtick that worked. They used to call the show, "Misfit Radio," and it made sense.
Then, one day during a Friday Night Mariner game on location at Edgar's Cantina, Danny O'Neil announced it was their final show, and he was heart broken. It became Bob, Dave, and Moore, with Danny O'Neil going onto his own show, and the misfits were gone. "Who would've thought a guy with a stuttering problem, a football player whose taken hits to the head, and a color man who was a newspaper guy battling depression could make this work, but we did."
Bob Stelton is now talk radio's equivalent of a play by play guy and he's anything but a misfit; he's the kind of sports fan you'd meet in a bar and wish you'd never started talking to unless you wanted a recitation of the game you'd just watched. They stole the format of Danny, Dave, and Moore, but it had none of the same magic, save that Bob and Dave would pile up on Jim, but Bob didn't have the same love for him, that Danny did, and the show became mean. Still, the weight of Jim Moore and Dave Wyman created enough of an illusion that you were listening to Danny, Dave, and Moore, to make it a decent version of an oldie but a goodie, like a touring band with most of the members on stage, if not all, and it was good enough. Dave didn't have to say too much, and Jim Moore provided all the color, with his "Go Cougs" boyish charm and Zen like idiocy, that in some ways rivaled Bukowski at the race track. Sure, I wanted Danny O'Neill's penetrating mind as opposed to Bob Stelton's that was made of wood, but understood Danny may be too smart for most listeners, while Bob was right down their alley, and gave in to the new format.
A Week Later:
I let the show sit for a week, and it's toast. Dave can't lead a show as co-host, nor can he be the ass-hat Jim Moore was as a color man. Wyman is good at nostalgia and throwing in a story from his past like Coach on Cheers, but sports talk radio is not about jocks in the booth. It's about fans talking to fans. Dave loves the game but like a coach. I now only listen to Wyman and Bob to numb my mind.
October 21, 2020
Family Ties
Dear reader - I was a huge fan of Family Ties. I saw it when it first aired and Alex P. Keaton's right wing rebellion against his hippie parents was one of the greatest moments of TV for me. I'm a night owl, and have been watching it late at night ever since the pandemic. I hadn't seen it since the '80s, and even then missed the last few years (at least) after going to college. Family Ties became an afterthought, but in that numinous Covid-19 way it has reintroduced itself into my life.
I have a few quick takeaways, and this from the vantage point of a true fan, who will never forget how Michael J. Fox burst onto the scene. In the early seasons, or the first episodes, the power of the dynamic between Alex and his parents is palpable, and why I must've loved it so much as a fourteen year old. Alex P. Keaton was everyone at Oakwood school with hippiesque parents, who assumed their children would follow their lead, but often didn't. I wasn't exactly Alex, but he was the most intellectual character on the show, not to mention the most alive. His character continues to resonate to me, but for some reason the show stopped focusing on him after the first or second season, and shifts to Mallory, so let's get to her.
A friend of mine at work was revisiting Family Ties around 2012 with his girlfriend, and said "Mallory may have been the reason Family Ties was popular." I'd have to agree with this. I still have a teenage crush on her when I watch this, and I'm far from a teenager! I know that the show was horribly sexist by making the cute girl a ditz, and the cute boy an egghead, but both actors were the stars of this show - Michael J. Fox and Justine Bateman, not to be confused with her brother, who became more famous (?) than her, but I'll never understand why. The truth is Mallory and Alex are reacting against their parents and this was inherently attractive - Mallory through fashion, something that hippies disregarded, and Alex through conservatism.
Jennifer, the youngest, is the most like her parents, and the worst character in the cast. It's not that Tina Yothers is bad, but like many child stars she became an awkward adolescent, whereas that was where Alex and Mallory began. I want to say that most children who blindly take on their parents ethics become boring, and while that may be too sweeping in the case of Steven and Elyse Keating this may be true. Again, the casting was perfect, and part of why this dynamic show that became insipid was able to survive for so long, but the parents are lame. I know I'm saying this from the point of view of Alex and Mallory, who ultimately love them, but Steven and Elyse have neither the glitz of the liberal elite that was soon to takeover the Country through the presidency of Bill Clinton, or an outsider perspective that we're lead to believe their peers may have had after the Berkeley protests. (The opening montage for the first season or two shows them meeting at a People's Park protest with Steven speaking, but this was blotted out after a season or two). Steven and Elyse are weak kneed liberals before the demise of the New Deal Democrats, that held on through the Eighties, but were soon to be annihilated by '92.
I don't think there was an equivalent to Family Ties though many shows copied the quirky family feeling, but none captured the politics. (Right now, I'm watching the parents singing "Blowin' in the Wind," and Alex making fun of them. It was a running joke of the series for the kids to make fun of folk music, something that bonded Mallory and Alex). I remember my stepdad coming home from work and watching me watch it. He wasn't a fan of TV sitcoms, thinking them stupid, and made fun of me for watching shows like "Three's Company," but was intrigued by Family Ties - "They've inverted All in the Family," he said, and he was right. The show made the kids the conservatives.
There's a lot wrong with Family Ties. It is getting me through the pandemic but it is all too clear to me that I may be the only person alive who still likes this show, or sees the good in it. The Michael J. Fox zeitgeist is obviously gone and has been soon after "Back to the Future," or "Teen Wolf." The political moment the show is recreating is so ancient to the Millennials that it may as well be the Ice Age (the cold war). The Democratic Party that served as a counter balance to Alex P. Keaton has disappeared, along with his William F. Buckley inspired Republican one, that Alex was emulating. In the later seasons, or rather 2/3 of the episodes it too often lapses into a rather unrealistic family drama where the politics are left behind and everyone has a soft side. But even in these fragmented moments I see my youth and why TV history is political history. I'm alive in the era the series is showing, a ghost on the wall of the set of the Keaton's Columbus, Ohio, home, a true believer. I laugh at Skippy's unrequited crush on Mallory, who secretly likes it, because the Gen X man was Skippy, a dorky outsider lame enough to be friends with Alex, marking him a square, even if Alex had charisma. Skippy was anti-charisma and the portent of grunge.
The worst move the show ever made was making Elyse have a baby in mid-life by season 5 or so, a naked attempt at making the show relevant. If I was five years younger, and watching Family Ties for the first time in the late '80s, I would've missed all the angst of Alex P. Keaton, living the life of a conservative in a liberal love nest, and losing his mind. I would've had no idea that the show had an edge where the parents loved their child but couldn't understand him, and likewise their child loved them but couldn't understand them. No one in the family really challenges anyone by the later seasons since the secret is out that they all love each other and never intend to leave home, with their political differences melting away. This may be how it actually happens in loving families, but it doesn't make for interesting television. The Keatons become no different than the Brady Bunch but without any of the groovy fashion or psychedelic colors.
But those first episodes were fascinating. The Keatons weren't going through the problems of the "generation gap" that TV exploited throughout the '70s but a real ideological struggle that surpassed the concept of a misunderstanding. If they only could've kept this vain going we all might think of Family Ties as one of the best shows ever, but instead it's a curio from a time gone by but my time. Steven and Elyse would've had a divorce, or at least a separation, and Alex would've and/or Mallory would've taken sides, and there wouldn't have been a silly reconciliation at the end of the 1/2 hour episode, but would've been followed up by more emotionally confusing episodes where the ethics behind the politics would come to light. It would've been a li'l more like Rhoda where Joe and Rhoda were the first TV marriage to divorce mid-series, but this depressed America, even in the rather truth telling '70s, when Carter gave his "Crisis of Confidence" speech on national TV. Instead, Family Ties sought safe terrain after a radical opening that put it on the map and in that way followed the sell-out of the Steven and Elyse, with the conservative inclinations of Mallory and Alex, as if the show had found a middle ground within the seemingly conflicting paradigms of the characters.
I have a few quick takeaways, and this from the vantage point of a true fan, who will never forget how Michael J. Fox burst onto the scene. In the early seasons, or the first episodes, the power of the dynamic between Alex and his parents is palpable, and why I must've loved it so much as a fourteen year old. Alex P. Keaton was everyone at Oakwood school with hippiesque parents, who assumed their children would follow their lead, but often didn't. I wasn't exactly Alex, but he was the most intellectual character on the show, not to mention the most alive. His character continues to resonate to me, but for some reason the show stopped focusing on him after the first or second season, and shifts to Mallory, so let's get to her.
A friend of mine at work was revisiting Family Ties around 2012 with his girlfriend, and said "Mallory may have been the reason Family Ties was popular." I'd have to agree with this. I still have a teenage crush on her when I watch this, and I'm far from a teenager! I know that the show was horribly sexist by making the cute girl a ditz, and the cute boy an egghead, but both actors were the stars of this show - Michael J. Fox and Justine Bateman, not to be confused with her brother, who became more famous (?) than her, but I'll never understand why. The truth is Mallory and Alex are reacting against their parents and this was inherently attractive - Mallory through fashion, something that hippies disregarded, and Alex through conservatism.
Jennifer, the youngest, is the most like her parents, and the worst character in the cast. It's not that Tina Yothers is bad, but like many child stars she became an awkward adolescent, whereas that was where Alex and Mallory began. I want to say that most children who blindly take on their parents ethics become boring, and while that may be too sweeping in the case of Steven and Elyse Keating this may be true. Again, the casting was perfect, and part of why this dynamic show that became insipid was able to survive for so long, but the parents are lame. I know I'm saying this from the point of view of Alex and Mallory, who ultimately love them, but Steven and Elyse have neither the glitz of the liberal elite that was soon to takeover the Country through the presidency of Bill Clinton, or an outsider perspective that we're lead to believe their peers may have had after the Berkeley protests. (The opening montage for the first season or two shows them meeting at a People's Park protest with Steven speaking, but this was blotted out after a season or two). Steven and Elyse are weak kneed liberals before the demise of the New Deal Democrats, that held on through the Eighties, but were soon to be annihilated by '92.
I don't think there was an equivalent to Family Ties though many shows copied the quirky family feeling, but none captured the politics. (Right now, I'm watching the parents singing "Blowin' in the Wind," and Alex making fun of them. It was a running joke of the series for the kids to make fun of folk music, something that bonded Mallory and Alex). I remember my stepdad coming home from work and watching me watch it. He wasn't a fan of TV sitcoms, thinking them stupid, and made fun of me for watching shows like "Three's Company," but was intrigued by Family Ties - "They've inverted All in the Family," he said, and he was right. The show made the kids the conservatives.
There's a lot wrong with Family Ties. It is getting me through the pandemic but it is all too clear to me that I may be the only person alive who still likes this show, or sees the good in it. The Michael J. Fox zeitgeist is obviously gone and has been soon after "Back to the Future," or "Teen Wolf." The political moment the show is recreating is so ancient to the Millennials that it may as well be the Ice Age (the cold war). The Democratic Party that served as a counter balance to Alex P. Keaton has disappeared, along with his William F. Buckley inspired Republican one, that Alex was emulating. In the later seasons, or rather 2/3 of the episodes it too often lapses into a rather unrealistic family drama where the politics are left behind and everyone has a soft side. But even in these fragmented moments I see my youth and why TV history is political history. I'm alive in the era the series is showing, a ghost on the wall of the set of the Keaton's Columbus, Ohio, home, a true believer. I laugh at Skippy's unrequited crush on Mallory, who secretly likes it, because the Gen X man was Skippy, a dorky outsider lame enough to be friends with Alex, marking him a square, even if Alex had charisma. Skippy was anti-charisma and the portent of grunge.
The worst move the show ever made was making Elyse have a baby in mid-life by season 5 or so, a naked attempt at making the show relevant. If I was five years younger, and watching Family Ties for the first time in the late '80s, I would've missed all the angst of Alex P. Keaton, living the life of a conservative in a liberal love nest, and losing his mind. I would've had no idea that the show had an edge where the parents loved their child but couldn't understand him, and likewise their child loved them but couldn't understand them. No one in the family really challenges anyone by the later seasons since the secret is out that they all love each other and never intend to leave home, with their political differences melting away. This may be how it actually happens in loving families, but it doesn't make for interesting television. The Keatons become no different than the Brady Bunch but without any of the groovy fashion or psychedelic colors.
But those first episodes were fascinating. The Keatons weren't going through the problems of the "generation gap" that TV exploited throughout the '70s but a real ideological struggle that surpassed the concept of a misunderstanding. If they only could've kept this vain going we all might think of Family Ties as one of the best shows ever, but instead it's a curio from a time gone by but my time. Steven and Elyse would've had a divorce, or at least a separation, and Alex would've and/or Mallory would've taken sides, and there wouldn't have been a silly reconciliation at the end of the 1/2 hour episode, but would've been followed up by more emotionally confusing episodes where the ethics behind the politics would come to light. It would've been a li'l more like Rhoda where Joe and Rhoda were the first TV marriage to divorce mid-series, but this depressed America, even in the rather truth telling '70s, when Carter gave his "Crisis of Confidence" speech on national TV. Instead, Family Ties sought safe terrain after a radical opening that put it on the map and in that way followed the sell-out of the Steven and Elyse, with the conservative inclinations of Mallory and Alex, as if the show had found a middle ground within the seemingly conflicting paradigms of the characters.
February 26, 2020
I saw the light, and felt the Bern!
In October, 2012, I knew the world was changing, and I couldn't believe it after a very disillusioning first term of the Obama Presidency, that he's slightly redeemed in his second termbut not enough for anyone to care. I'd given up on Obama and the ridiculous notion that you had to vote against your will and between the best of two bad options, a stance I accepted only once in my life as an American voter, that really didn't start well into my '30's. I voted for John Kerry against George W. Bush and still feel stung by his cowardice when he didn't challenge the election night results decided by a slim W. victory in Ohio, that John Conyers, of the Black Congressional Congress, wrote a report on called "What Went Wrong in Ohio." (Plenty!) I'd never felt so politically cheated in my life, and it was a moment that proved to me Kerry really was a dishonorable man, when the chips were down, but I digress.
By 2012, I'd given up on the two party system for the second or third time in my life but this time instead of being a apathetic Gen X loner I decided to vote Green for the first time in my life. Sure, I wanted to vote for Nader in 2000, but didn't have my shit together, and frantically went to the Nader headquarters in the Central District days before the first Tuesday in November, election day, to see if I could do anything about it but I was too late. I'm sure the Nader supporters saw my dedication and gave me a lot of "Nader dollars" that I used in a collage of the 2000 election, so you could say I made my vote heard but not literally. The same wasn't going to happen to me in 2004, but I was an ardent Dean supporter and spoke up for him at the 2004 Washington State caucus in a room of people, and had the support of a neighbor couple in my apartment building from Vermont, the same state Bernie Sanders is from, but I knew all was lost because the Kerry supporters were rallying support quickly on the issue of electability in the general election, a favorite Clintonian/Second Wave Boomer trope, that always used the failed campaign of George McGovern in '72 as proof positive that you had to sell out to Republican principles to win a Presidential election, a stupid idea.
So, this brings me to the Green Party political event that I paid $10 to attend, and bought a couple of buttons. It was in Town Hall, a great old building in First Hill (Pill Hill, where the hospitals are), that must've been a church at one time, since there are several old great Catholic Churches around it. The place was packed and I went alone because Jenny was taking care of our diabetic cat, and though I attended most every shot he ever had in one way or the other, I took the night off in the name of Oliver because he was in cohoots with Fidel Castro, and would've liked nothing more than for me to attend a socialist gathering, that would've gotten me busted in the McCarthy witch hunts, if I was a famous Hollywood screenwriter, but I'm not. I was wearing a "Bobby Kennedy for President '68" button that I wore for at least a year or two when I was a "Bagist" with Seaside Johnny (check out the FB page for Ataraxia), and all but started an art movement. Not a day would go bye without someone talking to me because of my button, and that was remarkable, absolutely remarkable. I can't explain it but I became something more than me.... I became "Bobby Kennedy" for every lost sad left wing soul hoping for a better world, and it was an overwhelming feeling. I live in Seattle, and have been on Capitol Hill for what feels like a lifetime, and would literally speak on behalf of Bobby Kennedy EVERYDAY, so I may have well been running for President, as much as Obama, a sell out in 2012, or Mitt Romney, the Mormon joke, for time immemorial. Most everyone filtered the beautiful Saint like effigy that Bobby and John Kennedy have become for every dreamer, and I let strangers project their ideas of Bobby Kennedy on me, an unbelievable feeling. I was only ridiculed or taken down by a right winger twice: once was in Peet's coffee shop on the Sunset Strip (now gone, and forgotten!), and once was at a Firestone Tire Dealer in Seattle, but this was NOTHING compared to all the approval I got but wasn't seeking. I became a Catholic/Jewish well for suffering over the fate of the U.S.. and when the Occupy movement started, the feeling only got bigger. Artistically, I knew I was the only person in the world who could pull this off, because the Kennedy's are my heroes, like some claim Bowie is theirs, and I lived and died for them, as an American. I admired revolutionary leaders more than politicians but every agent of change is judged by his culture, and in the U.S. the Kennedy's ruled, as far as I was concerned. The Kennedy Curse was also an insanely fated and weird narrative to digest and understand watching my Country crumble in the Go-Go Reagan '80's, and this makes me think of the revolutionary post pop punk rock group "The Go-Go's" who every L.A. pre-pubescent girl thought were the best thing since sliced wonder bread, so the boys thought they were pretty cool too.
I sat in a front pew with Kashana Sawant right in front of me before she had won her city council seat that has all but changed the face of Seattle, and was on the cusp of success, and saw her speak and sat next to her family. I can't rightly speak it but I broke down in absolute tears in the pews with my Bobby Kennedy button on like always and just couldn't stop crying. The only other time I remember feeling like that over a political event is when Jenny and I watched a documentary on Bobby Kennedy in the nightmarish "W" years, and when they showed all the Americans along the Eastern Seaboard running from D.C. to Massachusetts (?) to be near him one last time, and feel his hopeful eternal soul. The assassination and martyrdom of "Bobby" and was just too much for us to bear, and we started wailing. It didn't help that I was infused with stories of the greatness of Bobby since I was a kid because my Mom lived in New York City and said one day she dropped her groceries, and Bobby Kennedy picked them up for her, and was struck by his translucent blue eyes, that she called the most beautiful she ever saw. But my Mom was no socialist she just loved beauty of the Kennedy's and they had that in spades making them popular to a vast breadth of the American psyche.
I came home to Jenny with new buttons all over me and told her that I had seen a new world after balling in tears for a good hour to ever speaker, feeling like every socialist dream I'd ever had for America, starting in childhood, and extending into my youth, had finally been realized, and a real democratic socialism was possible in spite of one of the lamest Presidential elections in history, Obama vs. Romney, a half black man seeking reelection against a Mormon. I knew a new America was coming and that I had literally felt it so strongly and truly I couldn't stop crying for pain, joy, loss, hope, forgiveness, fear, and every other emotion that there are no words for, because the feelings reached deep into my very being, to my childhood at a hippie school in LA. to my F.D.R./Truman era Grandfather living through the Great Depression and shooting down a cherry blossom squadron in WW II. I felt every political emotion I ever felt that night even if Jill Scott, the Green Party candidate for President, wasn't the best speaker of all time. I could tell by my tears that there was hope, because I wasn't expecting to feel anything, but a forlorn wish that I didn't have the organizational skills to mobilize.
Well, my vision has come true only four years later in the visage of Bernie Sanders and not even I could have predicted it. The Democratic Party strategist in me really thinks that Hillary Clinton is not going to be able to pull this one out for a number of reasons, but mostly because she's run out of gas, and even though she might be a couple of years younger than Sanders, she has lived a lot more, and has nothing more to give. She can't even make being the first woman President the gestalt of her campaign and this is troubling for her. She's now trying to run as Obama's third term, making her the third Black President in the history of the U.S. behind "Bubba" Clinton, her husband, and Obama, a half black man torn between Hawaii and Kansas. But Hillary is neither woman or black now and has nothing to run on, but good Benghazi hearing that nearly took her down a few months ago, and that she wants to forget. Her emails are also going to be dropped throughout the campaign season by a judge's order, a Clinton appointee, ironically.
I wear a Bernie Sanders pin that I bought for $5 the day that Bernie got the microphone taken from him by the Black Lives Matter group, and hope that anyone I change with it is changed by me, but I'm no martyr for a dead idealist like I was for Bobby Kennedy. Bernie is alive and well, and about to win the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary prepping him for a long protracted Democratic Primary with Hillary that will drain the Clinton Vampires of all life, because they can't figure out how to suck their fangs into Bernie, and are "Feelin' the Bern.' Not even Chelsea could do it trying to take down Bernie over Health Care and Women's Rights, but she's not as cute since she makes about a Million a Year because of nepotism, and married an investment broker like a good Clinton. The day's of triangulation are over.
By 2012, I'd given up on the two party system for the second or third time in my life but this time instead of being a apathetic Gen X loner I decided to vote Green for the first time in my life. Sure, I wanted to vote for Nader in 2000, but didn't have my shit together, and frantically went to the Nader headquarters in the Central District days before the first Tuesday in November, election day, to see if I could do anything about it but I was too late. I'm sure the Nader supporters saw my dedication and gave me a lot of "Nader dollars" that I used in a collage of the 2000 election, so you could say I made my vote heard but not literally. The same wasn't going to happen to me in 2004, but I was an ardent Dean supporter and spoke up for him at the 2004 Washington State caucus in a room of people, and had the support of a neighbor couple in my apartment building from Vermont, the same state Bernie Sanders is from, but I knew all was lost because the Kerry supporters were rallying support quickly on the issue of electability in the general election, a favorite Clintonian/Second Wave Boomer trope, that always used the failed campaign of George McGovern in '72 as proof positive that you had to sell out to Republican principles to win a Presidential election, a stupid idea.
So, this brings me to the Green Party political event that I paid $10 to attend, and bought a couple of buttons. It was in Town Hall, a great old building in First Hill (Pill Hill, where the hospitals are), that must've been a church at one time, since there are several old great Catholic Churches around it. The place was packed and I went alone because Jenny was taking care of our diabetic cat, and though I attended most every shot he ever had in one way or the other, I took the night off in the name of Oliver because he was in cohoots with Fidel Castro, and would've liked nothing more than for me to attend a socialist gathering, that would've gotten me busted in the McCarthy witch hunts, if I was a famous Hollywood screenwriter, but I'm not. I was wearing a "Bobby Kennedy for President '68" button that I wore for at least a year or two when I was a "Bagist" with Seaside Johnny (check out the FB page for Ataraxia), and all but started an art movement. Not a day would go bye without someone talking to me because of my button, and that was remarkable, absolutely remarkable. I can't explain it but I became something more than me.... I became "Bobby Kennedy" for every lost sad left wing soul hoping for a better world, and it was an overwhelming feeling. I live in Seattle, and have been on Capitol Hill for what feels like a lifetime, and would literally speak on behalf of Bobby Kennedy EVERYDAY, so I may have well been running for President, as much as Obama, a sell out in 2012, or Mitt Romney, the Mormon joke, for time immemorial. Most everyone filtered the beautiful Saint like effigy that Bobby and John Kennedy have become for every dreamer, and I let strangers project their ideas of Bobby Kennedy on me, an unbelievable feeling. I was only ridiculed or taken down by a right winger twice: once was in Peet's coffee shop on the Sunset Strip (now gone, and forgotten!), and once was at a Firestone Tire Dealer in Seattle, but this was NOTHING compared to all the approval I got but wasn't seeking. I became a Catholic/Jewish well for suffering over the fate of the U.S.. and when the Occupy movement started, the feeling only got bigger. Artistically, I knew I was the only person in the world who could pull this off, because the Kennedy's are my heroes, like some claim Bowie is theirs, and I lived and died for them, as an American. I admired revolutionary leaders more than politicians but every agent of change is judged by his culture, and in the U.S. the Kennedy's ruled, as far as I was concerned. The Kennedy Curse was also an insanely fated and weird narrative to digest and understand watching my Country crumble in the Go-Go Reagan '80's, and this makes me think of the revolutionary post pop punk rock group "The Go-Go's" who every L.A. pre-pubescent girl thought were the best thing since sliced wonder bread, so the boys thought they were pretty cool too.
I sat in a front pew with Kashana Sawant right in front of me before she had won her city council seat that has all but changed the face of Seattle, and was on the cusp of success, and saw her speak and sat next to her family. I can't rightly speak it but I broke down in absolute tears in the pews with my Bobby Kennedy button on like always and just couldn't stop crying. The only other time I remember feeling like that over a political event is when Jenny and I watched a documentary on Bobby Kennedy in the nightmarish "W" years, and when they showed all the Americans along the Eastern Seaboard running from D.C. to Massachusetts (?) to be near him one last time, and feel his hopeful eternal soul. The assassination and martyrdom of "Bobby" and was just too much for us to bear, and we started wailing. It didn't help that I was infused with stories of the greatness of Bobby since I was a kid because my Mom lived in New York City and said one day she dropped her groceries, and Bobby Kennedy picked them up for her, and was struck by his translucent blue eyes, that she called the most beautiful she ever saw. But my Mom was no socialist she just loved beauty of the Kennedy's and they had that in spades making them popular to a vast breadth of the American psyche.
I came home to Jenny with new buttons all over me and told her that I had seen a new world after balling in tears for a good hour to ever speaker, feeling like every socialist dream I'd ever had for America, starting in childhood, and extending into my youth, had finally been realized, and a real democratic socialism was possible in spite of one of the lamest Presidential elections in history, Obama vs. Romney, a half black man seeking reelection against a Mormon. I knew a new America was coming and that I had literally felt it so strongly and truly I couldn't stop crying for pain, joy, loss, hope, forgiveness, fear, and every other emotion that there are no words for, because the feelings reached deep into my very being, to my childhood at a hippie school in LA. to my F.D.R./Truman era Grandfather living through the Great Depression and shooting down a cherry blossom squadron in WW II. I felt every political emotion I ever felt that night even if Jill Scott, the Green Party candidate for President, wasn't the best speaker of all time. I could tell by my tears that there was hope, because I wasn't expecting to feel anything, but a forlorn wish that I didn't have the organizational skills to mobilize.
Well, my vision has come true only four years later in the visage of Bernie Sanders and not even I could have predicted it. The Democratic Party strategist in me really thinks that Hillary Clinton is not going to be able to pull this one out for a number of reasons, but mostly because she's run out of gas, and even though she might be a couple of years younger than Sanders, she has lived a lot more, and has nothing more to give. She can't even make being the first woman President the gestalt of her campaign and this is troubling for her. She's now trying to run as Obama's third term, making her the third Black President in the history of the U.S. behind "Bubba" Clinton, her husband, and Obama, a half black man torn between Hawaii and Kansas. But Hillary is neither woman or black now and has nothing to run on, but good Benghazi hearing that nearly took her down a few months ago, and that she wants to forget. Her emails are also going to be dropped throughout the campaign season by a judge's order, a Clinton appointee, ironically.
I wear a Bernie Sanders pin that I bought for $5 the day that Bernie got the microphone taken from him by the Black Lives Matter group, and hope that anyone I change with it is changed by me, but I'm no martyr for a dead idealist like I was for Bobby Kennedy. Bernie is alive and well, and about to win the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary prepping him for a long protracted Democratic Primary with Hillary that will drain the Clinton Vampires of all life, because they can't figure out how to suck their fangs into Bernie, and are "Feelin' the Bern.' Not even Chelsea could do it trying to take down Bernie over Health Care and Women's Rights, but she's not as cute since she makes about a Million a Year because of nepotism, and married an investment broker like a good Clinton. The day's of triangulation are over.
February 5, 2020
Where the Democratic Race stands after the Iowa fiasco
I'm going to write this trying not to betray my bias, though my readers probably know this.
I think the big winner to come out of Iowa is Elizabeth Warren because she finished in a strong third place, and has avoided the battle between Mayor Pete and Bernie "Feel the Bern" Sanders. Buttigieg claimed victory, and he may prevail in a dicey election, that he poured all of his resources into, and that few will trust. The point is no one will remember who won the Iowa Caucuses, and why Warren is the winner.
Bernie may still win the primaries, or Iowa may be a portent of an endless sea of shenanigans that will either drag down his campaign, or inspire it. I can't see Buttigieg going far past this initial victory, considering Iowa is his kind of State. That said, Buttigieg has risen above Beto, Harris, and Booker, something no one would've thought at the outset, and seems primed for a long political career, if he so desires, and after claiming victory last night I'd say he's avaricious.
Biden may also have dodged a bullet here, although not by much. Everyone knows he didn't do well, and the hype on NPR before the caucus fiasco, was decidedly pro-Biden, so this must be a death knell. The only caveat is that he may do best among black voters, who largely make up the constituency on Super Tuesday, and this could sustain him, if not put him in the lead.
Klobuchar only "performed above her weight," because she seems to have outlasted Biden, but I don't see this campaign going anywhere.
Bernie will become the martyr, and Mayor Pete the new face of the Party, but between these two extremes, it's possible without any data analysis to imagine Warren as the victor, wiggling through the line.
I realize that the mainstream media is painting the Iowa Caucus fiasco on a malfunctioning app, and blame is going around. But no one in the mainstream media has yet to confess that the app called SHADOW, was run by a group of ex-Hillary staffers, and given her dislike of Sanders this is fishy. Conspiratorially thinking, it would seem the Clinton DNC would have rather had Mayor Pete, the centrist du jour, gone on to victory in a normal manner. He has not "shocked the Nation," in his words, or not how meant. There are too many other events going on right now to warrant this, not to mention the outcome is still unknown over 24 hours later.
The DNC wanted Pete to coast without any confusion, but they silenced Bernie, which must've been the goal all along. I haven't watched the year long build up to this disaster, but I've read from many sources that Sanders got almost no media coverage and this would seem in keeping with my three day immersion into the political waters, that may have to end soon for my sanity.
I think the big winner to come out of Iowa is Elizabeth Warren because she finished in a strong third place, and has avoided the battle between Mayor Pete and Bernie "Feel the Bern" Sanders. Buttigieg claimed victory, and he may prevail in a dicey election, that he poured all of his resources into, and that few will trust. The point is no one will remember who won the Iowa Caucuses, and why Warren is the winner.
Bernie may still win the primaries, or Iowa may be a portent of an endless sea of shenanigans that will either drag down his campaign, or inspire it. I can't see Buttigieg going far past this initial victory, considering Iowa is his kind of State. That said, Buttigieg has risen above Beto, Harris, and Booker, something no one would've thought at the outset, and seems primed for a long political career, if he so desires, and after claiming victory last night I'd say he's avaricious.
Biden may also have dodged a bullet here, although not by much. Everyone knows he didn't do well, and the hype on NPR before the caucus fiasco, was decidedly pro-Biden, so this must be a death knell. The only caveat is that he may do best among black voters, who largely make up the constituency on Super Tuesday, and this could sustain him, if not put him in the lead.
Klobuchar only "performed above her weight," because she seems to have outlasted Biden, but I don't see this campaign going anywhere.
Bernie will become the martyr, and Mayor Pete the new face of the Party, but between these two extremes, it's possible without any data analysis to imagine Warren as the victor, wiggling through the line.
I realize that the mainstream media is painting the Iowa Caucus fiasco on a malfunctioning app, and blame is going around. But no one in the mainstream media has yet to confess that the app called SHADOW, was run by a group of ex-Hillary staffers, and given her dislike of Sanders this is fishy. Conspiratorially thinking, it would seem the Clinton DNC would have rather had Mayor Pete, the centrist du jour, gone on to victory in a normal manner. He has not "shocked the Nation," in his words, or not how meant. There are too many other events going on right now to warrant this, not to mention the outcome is still unknown over 24 hours later.
The DNC wanted Pete to coast without any confusion, but they silenced Bernie, which must've been the goal all along. I haven't watched the year long build up to this disaster, but I've read from many sources that Sanders got almost no media coverage and this would seem in keeping with my three day immersion into the political waters, that may have to end soon for my sanity.
November 14, 2019
The impeachment of Donald J. Trump
This will go down as the most boring impeachment in modern times Watergate stunned the moral conscience of an innocent nation, and the U.S. was never the same. Clinton's impeachment for a blow job showed the divisiveness the politics of Vietnam played out a generation later, a never ending disease, that corrupted our politics. The impeachment of Donald J. Trump will go down as the most abstract in the history of the Country, and what I now see as payback for Clinton's that had nothing to do with constitutional intent, and became a family matter from the divorce generation writ large, but not worthy of removal from office. This impeachment started before Trump ever took office, and again my Clinton Dem fans will hate me for saying this (not sure of the Bernie Bros (lol)), but this was a first in the Nation's history, as far as I know. Never had a President been so mistrusted so fast, which on a Spenglerian scale would indicate the decline of a Country, bloated on filth.
Everyone will hate me for saying this, including myself, but Trump has infused a ton of originality and independence in his Presidency, that makes the casual observer whom no longer exists (lol), have to think twice before judging the themes of his Presidency, though the plot line is boiler plate Republican - cut taxes on big business, ignore climate change, crack down on immigration, etc. But the themes of the Trump Presidency may be too big for us mere mortals to grasp at the present, since he will probably be the most unreal President not only in my lifetime, but the Country's. Sure, Gerald Ford was the accidental President, an idea that struck close to my heart, since I felt like the accidental quarterback for my class.
The Presidency of Reagan, the B movie actor, who stumped as a Red Warrior in the McCarthy witch hunt era as President of the Screen Actors Guild, and became governor of California in the '60s, where he installed martial law in People's Park. Trump has no Party affinity like Reagan, which has always made him a wild card, but the truth is the Republican Party lost its country club stature long ago, with the Democratic Party seizing this ground, via vis Clinton.
The Braggadocio of the Republicans is hard to watch but who can blame a Party that was predicted to go down for a generation or two after the miserable term of two timer W., only to resurrect through the dysfunction of the opposing Party, the Democrats, who have the ability to seize defeat from the jaws of victory, and what makes me skeptical about these impeachment hearings.
I wonder if the Democrats subconsciously see the impeachment of Trump as payback for Clinton, especially since first lady Hillary lost to him in the general election. On merely intellectual grounds, the impeachment of Trump is justifiable, and yet the Dem's had such better evidence and story against Bush/Cheney through the lie about WMD's, to justify the Iraq War, which still steers policy, not to mention the circumstances of 9/11, but then Cheney's outing of a spy, Valerie Plame, for her husband writing an op-ed critical of Bush/Cheney, and what about the Downing Street memo, that conceded "we fixed the facts to fit the policy." The W. years made for an easy impeachment and what I thought the first Pelosi led House would do when I saw it spray painted on a dumpster delivering pizzas.
I heard Rance Priebus on TV today, the chair of the RNC who got behind Trump's successful run for the Presidency, and his chief of staff who was fired or let go, but like all meat eaters he survives in the material world. He said the impeachment was convicting a man for the intent of his mind, and that this was hard to prove. Unfortunately, I couldn't disagree with Rance, and he elaborated his argument to say that Trump had given the "middle finger" to D.C. and that Deep State was against him, and that's all any of this was about. Trump had a style that pissed off the State Department, and they lashed out. Now I'm not sure who's at State or DOJ, or any of the other Orwellian institutions, but I couldn't disagree. It's not that I'm for Trump here, but the Democratic base has wanted to impeach Trump for day one, and the Mueller report was a big let down, so this was their shot. The problem is the "quid pro quo" story is too heavy with plot, and not enough with theme, but maybe story line is irrelevant to this impeachment, which ultimately must be about something far greater than our measly selves, but a preordained event. Trump had to go down and the Democrats thought it was best to throw caution to the wind.
The romantic in me wants to think that Pelosi has waged this war because of a political calculation that the left wing of the Party is the future and that while she represents the old guard, is flexible enough to also represent the new guard, and so will be forever hard to define. I want to think that Pelosi gave into AOC calling for impeachment a few days before, but whatever the reason its coming because the Party has painted itself into a corner.
Everyone will hate me for saying this, including myself, but Trump has infused a ton of originality and independence in his Presidency, that makes the casual observer whom no longer exists (lol), have to think twice before judging the themes of his Presidency, though the plot line is boiler plate Republican - cut taxes on big business, ignore climate change, crack down on immigration, etc. But the themes of the Trump Presidency may be too big for us mere mortals to grasp at the present, since he will probably be the most unreal President not only in my lifetime, but the Country's. Sure, Gerald Ford was the accidental President, an idea that struck close to my heart, since I felt like the accidental quarterback for my class.
The Presidency of Reagan, the B movie actor, who stumped as a Red Warrior in the McCarthy witch hunt era as President of the Screen Actors Guild, and became governor of California in the '60s, where he installed martial law in People's Park. Trump has no Party affinity like Reagan, which has always made him a wild card, but the truth is the Republican Party lost its country club stature long ago, with the Democratic Party seizing this ground, via vis Clinton.
The Braggadocio of the Republicans is hard to watch but who can blame a Party that was predicted to go down for a generation or two after the miserable term of two timer W., only to resurrect through the dysfunction of the opposing Party, the Democrats, who have the ability to seize defeat from the jaws of victory, and what makes me skeptical about these impeachment hearings.
I wonder if the Democrats subconsciously see the impeachment of Trump as payback for Clinton, especially since first lady Hillary lost to him in the general election. On merely intellectual grounds, the impeachment of Trump is justifiable, and yet the Dem's had such better evidence and story against Bush/Cheney through the lie about WMD's, to justify the Iraq War, which still steers policy, not to mention the circumstances of 9/11, but then Cheney's outing of a spy, Valerie Plame, for her husband writing an op-ed critical of Bush/Cheney, and what about the Downing Street memo, that conceded "we fixed the facts to fit the policy." The W. years made for an easy impeachment and what I thought the first Pelosi led House would do when I saw it spray painted on a dumpster delivering pizzas.
I heard Rance Priebus on TV today, the chair of the RNC who got behind Trump's successful run for the Presidency, and his chief of staff who was fired or let go, but like all meat eaters he survives in the material world. He said the impeachment was convicting a man for the intent of his mind, and that this was hard to prove. Unfortunately, I couldn't disagree with Rance, and he elaborated his argument to say that Trump had given the "middle finger" to D.C. and that Deep State was against him, and that's all any of this was about. Trump had a style that pissed off the State Department, and they lashed out. Now I'm not sure who's at State or DOJ, or any of the other Orwellian institutions, but I couldn't disagree. It's not that I'm for Trump here, but the Democratic base has wanted to impeach Trump for day one, and the Mueller report was a big let down, so this was their shot. The problem is the "quid pro quo" story is too heavy with plot, and not enough with theme, but maybe story line is irrelevant to this impeachment, which ultimately must be about something far greater than our measly selves, but a preordained event. Trump had to go down and the Democrats thought it was best to throw caution to the wind.
The romantic in me wants to think that Pelosi has waged this war because of a political calculation that the left wing of the Party is the future and that while she represents the old guard, is flexible enough to also represent the new guard, and so will be forever hard to define. I want to think that Pelosi gave into AOC calling for impeachment a few days before, but whatever the reason its coming because the Party has painted itself into a corner.
Bet on the Beaten
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