CANCER PORN

Windy, but not very dishy.

For many years, I was an avid collector (downloader, to be more precise) of a

genre of 1960s music called "sunshine pop". It was exactly what its name implies: catchy three-minute Top 40 tunes with sunny dispositions, happy vocals, and usually featuring "ba-ba-ba" or "la-la-la" in the chorus. A good example -- perhaps the first -- was "Windy" by the Association. 

As my collection of sunshine pop grew, certain themes recurred. These included the innate wisdom of children, the wonder of the nature, and, of course, sunshine itself. A band called The Ballroom went one step further with their single "Spinning, Spinning, Spinning." Accompanied by a jangly lead guitar, composer/producer/lead vocalist Curt Boettcher sings:

A cripple taught me how to dance

A blind man taught me how to see

A fallen angel taught me how to fly

And a prisoner taught me to be free.

You get the idea; you could probably finish the lyrics yourself. But it's the first two lines that make one stand up and take notice (or groan, depending on your tolerance for homespun axioms and the word "cripple"). It's the romanization of physical incapacitation or fatal illness, a sub-genre in contemporary "young adult" fiction. 

One blogger refers to it as "sick lit". One of the most famous examples was The Fault in Our Stars John Green. What this book, like others, do is arouse the kind of heartfelt, cry-in-your-hankie doomed love that teen females wallow in: adolescent girl falls in love adolescent boy dying with cancer. Or vice-versa. Or they both have cancer, making it twice as romantic.

Next time you're in L.A., tell me if you spot any
hookers or johns who look like this.

I watched a piece on the news about The Fault in Our Stars, astonished by the dewy-eyed girls at an autograph signing with the author. It reminded me of the number of young women who, upon seeing the Julia Robert romcom Pretty Woman, probably took the first bus to Los Angeles in order to meet the millionaire of their dreams by becoming a streetwalker. Ask a real hooker how those things work out. 

Not that girls want to be diagnosed with cancer while in high school. But falling in love with a boy with cancer... who can teach her what living is all about... and evoke that first giddy feelings of love... as they curl up together on the hospital bed, their hearts beating in unison? That's real love. And even better, he's too weak to feel you up!

"Go on, skip ahead. You know how it's going to
end."

This cancer has now spread to anime, in the Netflix movie In Waves, where a young man

gets the courage to surf thanks to lessons taught by a young woman afflicted with you-know-what. A sick girl taught me how to hang ten...

Having lost three family members along with at least one good friend to various kinds of cancer, I can tell you there's nothing romantic or instructive about it. It is ugly. Roger Ebert made that quite clear in his scathing review of The Bucket List almost 20 years ago when he had cancer. 

Now, truthful art about illnesses have been created. I actually wrote a memoir about my bout with renal cancer, with the genius title One Kidney To Go, but realized nobody would read it. There was no physically devastating chemotherapy or radiation, no losing of hair, no dropping of weight to skeletal condition. Just surgery.

Worse, I lived. And if there's anything consumers of cancer porn hate, it's a happy ending. Death and heartbreak are soooooo much more romantic than survival. Just ask the 23 million people who bought The Fault in Our Stars.  

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 75

Buckle up for a time-travel jaunt from 1933 to 1984, with stops in Hollywood, Bali, and the moon. All aboard!

GIVE A MAN A JOB (1933): Well, whaddaya know -- another three-minute short
promoting the National Recovery Administration, this time courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer! Why hold rallies and make speeches when the studios did the heavy lifting gratis? (That's what they mean by "PATRIOTICALLY CONTRIBUTED".)

Give a Man a Job isn't the official title of the short. In fact, it really doesn't have a title to speak of. It's the song 36-year-old Jimmy Durante talks/sings/raps to a group of people wanting to learn more about the NRA. In a rhythmic, rhyming conversation with select patrons, Durante tells businessmen to hire more workers, and ordinary folks to patronize more businesses. Using his famous mispronunciation, Durante orders a hypochondriac, "You must see a doctor for pneumonia/a doctor for insohm-nia/one for osmosis/and two for halitosis/One for anemia/One for eczemee-ah/Neuritis, bronchitis, phlebitis, St. Vitus, or any other kind of an itis/That will delight us!"  This poor lady is being coerced into shelling out for at least ten doctors, who are already making bank. Hey, there's a Depression going on, remember? 

While Durante is, per usual, great fun to watch -- especially since he sings live in one take -- at no time does he explain how these folks are supposed to pay for all this extra help. Some musical emotional blackmail, then, is in order: "If the ol' name of Roosevelt makes the old heart throb/You take this message straight from the president and give a man a job!" To drive the point home, at the finale Durante unveils a portrait of FDR, to the cheers from his audience, and very likely Roosevelt himself in the White House screening room. Ponder MGM hiring Tim Allen doing the same for Trump while promoting Medicare cuts. 

BONUS POINTS: Rodgers & Hart patriotically contributed the song "Give a Man a Job", while Moe Howard plays an exterminator strong-armed (strong-nosed?) by Durante into giving weekends off to his regular employees so he can hire more. Well, at least they won't be working seven days a week anymore.

LEGONG (1935): A subgenre of the 1930s exploitation movie craze was the so-called "goona-goona" picture. These were semi-documentaries of South Pacific islands featuring exotic landscapes, animal violence, and "natives" of all ages in various states of undress. 

Legong (subtitled Dance of the Virgins) differed from your run-of-the-mill goona-goonas due to being in Technicolor, produced by A-list actress Constance Bennett, released internationally by Paramount, and its more or less respectful treatment of the non-pro cast and their characters... in various states of undress. This seemed to be the whole point of these movies, which makes you wonder the reasoning behind the MPAA giving a pass to Legong. (The animal violence is restricted to a cockfight -- a sport, like soccer, that seems to transcend nations.)

Although shot entirely in Bali, the allegedly true story of a young woman losing her boyfriend to her younger sister is straight out of any Hollywood writers' building. Legong's historical interest lies in capturing the real-life culture of the locals. Getting breakfast off the nearest fruit tree, making rice cakes, selling said rice cakes at the local market, and dancing. If what Legong portrays still exists in the jungles of Bali, it looks a lot more paradisical than what we consider civilization. But I hope the extras have since learned not to look at the camera.

BONUS POINTS:  Filmed two years before its 1935 release, Legong was one of the last two-strip Technicolor movies and silents. Shows you how an audience attuned to talkies would come out for people in various stages of undress. And cockfights.

STEPTOE AND SON (UNAIRED AMERICAN PILOT) (1965): It isn't a secret that the 1970s
sitcom Sanford and Son was a remake of the UK series Steptoe and Son. But what nobody (meaning me) realized was that an American version almost came to pass several years earlier, starring Fish-Eye fave Lee Tracy as the slovenly junk dealer, along with Aldo Ray as his put-upon adult son. And I never would have known about it without Fish-Eye reader Gary Donaldson kindly gifting me with a UK-only DVD of Steptoe and Son's unaired pilot. 

Alas, despite Tracy's participation, it's clear why the project wasn't picked up. There's trouble right from the opening credits with its dopey theme music, sound effects, and the idea of a junk man travelling around an American city in a horsedrawn cart in 1965. Too, there's little funny (as presented, anyway) about a father and son living one step away from poverty -- especially when the father treats his son like a piece of junk he's trying to sell. 

Still the same pro from his pre-code days, the now-haggard Tracy does his best to put Steptoe and Son over. Whatever laughs he evokes comes from his familiar delivery and the goodwill he brings, rather than the trite material. But Aldo Ray is no comedian; he's too strong to be believable as a grown son putting up with his father's crap. Eliminate the laugh track, and you've got the first draft of a second-rate Arthur Miller knockoff by a third-rate writer. 

But you know what? It's nice that Lee Tracy, who made his movie debut in 1929, was still in demand the same year Rubber Soul was released. Thanks for thinking of me, Gary! Let me know if there's a US DVD you'd like.

BONUS POINTS: Need I repeat myself? Lee Tracy.

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (1984):  Intended as a satirical tribute to Hollywood's golden age, Nothing Lasts Forever is a mishmash of Humoresque (sensitive young artist Adam Beckett tries to make it in the big city), The Wizard of Oz (Adam leaves his black & white world and enters a land of color under Manhattan), and cheesy 1950s sci-fi (he takes a bus ride to the moon to meet his true love). I left out some details, but so did writer/director Tom Schiller. Between the 82-minute running time and the number of scenes that fade out without a pay-off, you know a lot of footage never made the final cut. And little of what remains isn't worth watching.

As for the cast, Zach Gillian is the star, but supporting players Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray seemed to be the insurance for studio financing. (Schiller himself was best known for his short films during Saturday Night Live's early years.) More interesting are unexpected appearances by the likes of Imogene Coca, Eddie Fisher, and Mort Sahl, while 93-year-old Sam Jaffe gives the best performance in a role based on his character in Lost Horizon. He died shortly after filming, perhaps of embarrassment. 

Nothing Lasts Forever --an ironic title for a movie that had me continually checking the clock -- is, like Harry Nilsson's godawful Son of Dracula, a "midnight movie" begging for a well-lubricated audience to overlook its many flaws. Outside of a few film festivals, it hasn't been screened since its original one-week release in Phoenix in 1984, nor has MGM ever made it available on home video. But a second-generation print is illegally streaming on a site originating from Russia. Haven't they made the world suffer enough?

BONUS POINTS: A lot of the bit players were stage and movie actors going back to the 1930s. One familiar face is Calvin DeForest, aka Larry "Bud" Melman from David Letterman's late-night series. Also, the closing credits' "The End" is identical to the style used by MGM in the 1930s. 

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HEADCASE

My original trainers.

My wife isn't the only person who's advised me to get my head examined. But she
was the first who meant it. 

It started when I watched a YouTube arm exercise video aimed at oldsters like me. Unlike similar lessons meant for those in the Gen Z territory, this one had me flummoxed.

Let arm out, right arm in front? Or was it the opposite? Should I mirror the instructor or move my left arm when she said "left arm"? Why couldn't I keep one arm still while moving the other? Why was I moving like a damaged push puppet?

If I were a zebra.

To be sure, "overly-coordinated" isn't an adjective that could describe me. For example, unlike the heroes in romcoms who commandeer the Central Park rowboats for their girlfriends, I would have been lucky to keep the damn thing from tipping over. Although I can kayak with the best of them. Or maybe the very good of them. 

The same was true regarding simple 10-pound dumbbell routines -- until now. After a difficult first 2/3 of a five-minute routine, I told my wife of my difficulties. She joined me in front of the TV to supervise what she likely thought would be just another instance of me not paying proper attention to what was being taught. 

I rewound the video to the beginning. And as my wife tried to explain what I was supposed to do, I found myself getting more confused, more frustrated, and eventually emotionally upset.

It wasn't just a matter of not having the physical wherewithal to do the routine. I didn't understand what I was watching.

And while I was able to do so the following day, that first go-round shook me enough to take my wife's advice to have a neurologist take look under the hood. While undergoing my usual lab work a few days later, I gave a rundown of the event to the nurse practitioner, who set me up with an appointment with someone in the system she trusted.

Amazing what modern science can do.

Which is how I found myself getting a CT, and a follow up in an MRI two days
later. (If you ever have a hankering to be aurally battered by a giant electronic magnet, book your MRI today!)

The results landed on my app a few hours later. I took a breath and braced myself for worst. Instead, I was confronted with language requiring a UN translator despite being in English.

 "No acute infarct, acute intraparenchymal hemorrhage, or mass effect. Scattered subcortical white matter hyperintensities are nonspecific although favored to reflect sequelae of chronic microvascular ischemic change. No hydrocephalus, midline shift, or herniation. No abnormal extra-axial fluid collection." You don't say. Do tell.

My wife, the retired nurse, did a bit of research regarding my condition. Seventy percent of the population my age had the same thing going on. Pay no attention to that ischemic behind the curtain. Everything else seemed to be cottidianus. (That's Latin for "normal". Two can play at this gobbledygook.)

Not that kind of a clock, wiseass!

All this was confirmed a few days later at the neurologist's office. After acing a series of tests ranging from correctly answering questions like "What state and country we in?", "Starting with 83, keep subtracting 7 from each answer", and "Draw 10 after 10 on a clock", and walking a straight line on my heels, toes, and atop an imaginary tightrope, I was given the prognosis: You don't have an illness. What you've experienced now and then are normal signs of aging. Thanks for playing.

Since then, I've returned to my more normal self, driving my wife batty with wiseguy remarks while earning plaudits for my Cordon Bleu-worthy dinners. Outside of wondering why people choose to have loud conversations outside my building at 3:00 A.M., I haven't experienced any unnerving moments of confusion. I can still do simple subtraction without the need for pencil and paper. And analogue clocks aren't a problem.

Life, then, is good once more. Just don't ask me to row a boat.

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GONE GIRL?

 The headline popped up the other day like a slice of pumpernickel in a toaster set to "Burn": 

What, me worry?

Gee, who could have seen this coming? Oh, I know: people with a functioning
brainstem! They had zero surprise that the ratings for Weiss' cathode-ray whipping boy 60 Minutes would drop to some of their lowest ratings points in the last quarter-century.

OK, so this man-the-lifeboats talk is strictly off-the-record speculation. The kind, however, that often comes from straight from the horse's mouth -- or, in the case of CBS owner David Ellison's case, horse's ass. 

Larry and David Ellison. Why is it that billionaires
insist on having such punchable faces?

But what isn't speculation is Ellison -- who, with dad Larry resembles father-and-son villains in the Batman franchise -- is taking no chances with his other sandbox toy, CNN, keeping its current CEO Mark Thompson in the driver's seat. You can bet your Skydance stock that the "source" who gave that info to the New York Post is on the Ellison payroll.

For a Columbia grad, it's remarkable that Bari Weiss doesn't have the sense God gave geese. I mean, she really thought that firing the talent who gave 60 Minutes its legendary cachet (and ratings) would attract new viewers rather than alienate those it already had. The viewers she was pandering to have been trained not to trust any news-related program that isn't connected to Fox.

I bet she skipped class when Marie Antoinette's
fate was discussed.

I don't know what Weiss was doing in those History classes she majored in. Two-bit bloggers like me (who, in truth, is a one-bit blogger) could see that Ellison hired her to do his bidding while making it look like she was calling the shots. 

If it worked, he would be right there taking the bows with Bari. And if it backfired, she would walk the CBS plank with a golden parachute to safely land back at The Free Press. Because no self-respecting TV network (if any still exist) would hire her afterwards. Not even Fox. No way would their now anti-Israel viewers put up with a self-described "Zionist fanatic" who was also a lesbian married to another woman. And they're both New Yorkers!

Weiss herself seems to be sensing this already. The Post reports, "A CBS insider said Weiss 'seemed subdued' and was going through the motions and 'being overly nice and encouraging' at the 9 am editorial meeting on Thursday." 

Too late with the Ms. Nice Guy act, Bari. To paraphrase a warning your college pals learned in Literature class: Never send for whom the 60 Minutes stopwatch ticks. It ticks for your time left at CBS.

BTW (as the kids text), the use of "pumpernickel" in the first paragraph was no accident. The word translates to "devil's fart."

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FLUNKING OUT OF INFLUENCER CLASS

 

Scotland. Just don't ask me where, it all
looks the same to me.

Last week, my wife, daughter, and I returned from a driving journey around Scotland. The country is as beautiful as the travel videos promise, even as the clouds in the Highlands tend to hide the top of whatever landscape you're looking at. (As with the US, the southern part of Scotland was warm and sunny.)

You like mountains? Hoo boy, have they got mountains! Like, the way New York has pigeon droppings. (I'm comparing the amount, by the way.) You get a kick out of sheep? There seem to be towns that have more ovis than homosapiens. And the food! Everything I'm not supposed to eat they serve in abundance. I loved it, even if my upcoming bloodwork lands me on my hematologist's "bad patient" list. 

If you're in the mood for a
Highland fling.

And yet with all things Scottish surrounding me, what did I make time for? Looking at my credit card app.  Restaurants, hotels, my Highland cow underwear briefs -- the sun never set on a day when my card wasn't paid off, clean and clear.

This isn't my usual routine. When I'm in the safe confines of home, I pay off cards only once a week. If you think even that's a bit much, I'll have you know our money manager does the same thing. 

All this influences me to do is congratulate
myself for making coffee at home.

What do he and I have in common? We're old, unlike the 24% of Gen Zers who "experience intense pressure to display material wealth on social media", according to a recent piece published on The Hill. This "material wealth" ranges from overpriced lattes with flower-shaped foam to first-class airline seats paid for over time, either with 20% APR or an interest-free, four-month installment plan. I remember reading one Gen Zer breathlessly explaining the latter as "essentially getting it for free!" Not when you get hit with a charge on the 17th of every month, it isn't.

I've seen these "influencers" around New York. They're always young women who appear to have spent an hour applying make-up before leaving the house and wearing expensive duds they put on the four-month payment plan, while taking selfies with their phones held high, often with their lips puckered like those of Daisy Duck.

My 30-year-old daughter doesn't fall into this category. A few weeks ago, she was able to move from her three-bedroom apartment she shared with two friends to an affordable Brooklyn studio apartment all by herself, while working one full-time and one part-time job, paying off her college loan, and tithing to her savings account every payday.  Ask her if she thinks dropping seven bucks every day on a latte is a wise way to live. 

You had me at "Bonjour". 

As for me, I've had a Blu-ray (pictured on the left) in my Amazon cart for a few days. The only reason I'm even considering buying it is that my wife enjoys French movies. And if I have to watch a French movie with her, it might as well be on the old side. 

But it's non-essential. It waits in my cart until the time I pull the trigger -- which might not ever happen, even though it costs less than three lattes. Ergo, I don't appear to be in the influencer class. 

Pity, then, you'll never see me modeling my Highland cow briefs. Pity my wife will.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 74

 Anti-communism! Pro-New Deal! Capitalism! Civil Rights! The entirety of the 20th century in three movies and one TV show. 

FORGOTTEN COMMANDMENTS (1932): The amount of hypocrisy that went into the making of Forgotten Commandments is equal only to its mediocrity. The work of two directors (each probably had to poke the other to stay awake), Paramount's low-budget, anti-Commie screed is further cheapened by two reels of... well, let the opening credits explain: Glorified by Spectacular Episodes from CECIL B. DE MILLE's Epic "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS". By the way, that's the 1923 silent version. Without it, this thing would run crawl only 40 minutes.

Newlyweds Paul and Marya move to Moscow to attend med school. Being married, they're allowed less expensive lodgings: a dorm-like facility, where each side-by-side "apartment" is one room minus a ceiling. Prof. Marinoff takes a liking to Paul, as does his sweetie Anya. Not to worry -- Marinoff considers monogamy to be anti-revolutionary... until Anya seduces Paul, which drives Marya to divorce, and Marinoff himself to murder. Moral: When the boot's on the other foot, Reds turn green with jealousy. (As for DeMille's Ten Commandments footage, it brings to life the story of the Exodus told by an old Orthodox priest to a group of children, which lands him in front of a firing squad. He should have stuck with "Hansel and Gretel".)

Subtle as a Russian farm tractor, Forgotten Commandments' script ("Don't keep calling me 'darling'. It's bourgeoise!") is Reefer Madness without the reefer. It also shares the same non-qualities -- simple set-ups, the look of filmed rehearsals -- as similar quickies of the time. Nobody, other than John Carradine as a rabblerousing Marxist, puts any effort into their performance -- it's astonishing this dreck was produced by one of the major studios. But what really bugs me is that the sexual shenanigans frowned upon here were rampant in Hollywood as they are now. Worse, it would take another seven years for a major studio to make an anti-Nazi movie, having spent most of the decade running scripts past the German embassy for approval. The real forgotten commandment in 1930s Hollywood was Thou Shalt Cower Before Fascists.

BONUS POINTS: Marguerite Clark (Marya) and Irving Pichel (Marinoff) starred in Dracula's Daughter four years later. Gene Raymond (Paul) starred in the manic marionette melodrama I Am Suzanne! Edward van Sloane (as a surgeon) was Hollywood's go-to actor as medicos, while Harry Cording (as a cop) was the junkie doctor in Narcotic. That's my idea of an all-star cast. 

MOTHER'S HELPER (1933): People who think certain Hollywood folks kowtow to Donald Trump have never watched the studio-produced, pro-NRA shorts. These didn't just explain what Pres. Roosevelt was trying to accomplish, they lauded him as the second coming of Abe Lincoln while actively pushing his agenda to audiences who just wanted to escape real life for a couple of hours.

Unlike The Road is Open Again, there's no finger-snapping song to warble in Mother's Helper. This is just a three-minute sitcom featuring a husband explaining to his wife that he's home early because his boss has signed the NRA pledge. The husband's workhours have been split with new employees in order to provide more jobs to the Depression-hit unemployed. At least that's what I think he said. When you've got Fox Film's resident Swedish dialect comedian El Brendel doing the talking, you're lucky to figure out (or care about) half of what he's saying.

Professional flibbertigibbet Zasu Pitts is the housewife who tries just as hard as us to understand what this NRA business is all about, fluttering her fingers as if shaking with the D.T.'s. Or maybe, as a hardcore anti-FDR Republican in real life, being forced to recite dialogue like "Anything the president does is OK with me" made her shake with rage. A genuinely funny appearance by starlet Esther Muir as Brendel's new part-time wife -- his own idea of NRA -- wraps things up with an unexpected laugh. An interesting example of how show business worked with the government in order to push a president's agenda, Mother's Helper offers all kinds of possibilities for a contemporary, ICE-inspired short starring Dean Cain and Roseanne Barr.

BONUS POINTS: Esther Muir would gain lasting fame as Groucho Marx's would-be paramour in A Day at the Races. 

TAKE IT FROM HERE (1954): When a movie has only one showing, it's either a real
stinkeroo, something completely oddball (like It Never Happened ) or a promotional short made for a convention. Take it From Here falls in the last two categories, but people with a less worldly view of entertainment than me would drop it in the first as well. It's lonely being open to the strange and different.

Made for the 1954 Texaco gas station owners convention -- did you know such a thing existed? -- Take it From Here is a two-reel musical advising them how to promote their businesses. Such a premise sounds pretty D-U-L-L, which is why the Texaco folks jazzed things up with over a half-dozen dames with fishnet- stockinged gams. Set in the "Texa-Courtroom", Judge Harry Von Zell provides over (make that leers over) a "trial" where the women -- each representing a different mode of advertising -- musically "testify" how they help the gas stations keep the pumps pumping. I guess that still sounds pretty dull if you're not looking at the aforementioned fishnet-stockinged gams.

This is where Jimmy Durante and Donald O'Connor come in. Clad in their finest Texaco pump jockey uniforms, the two sing and clown their way through a pep talk aimed at the "jury" (i.e. conventioneers). Their message is essentially, Texaco dropped a fortune on a national advertising blitz, now hand out Texaco hats to your customers. Unlike similar ephemeral shorts, Take it From Here is in wonderful condition, looking as good as it did the day it was run for a room of drunken conventioneers who wanted more of the girls and less of the stars. 

BONUS POINTS: The classy unnamed singer representing radio --the only woman here in a fancy dress -- is a reminder of the weekly Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera broadcast sponsored by Texaco from 1940 to 2003. The conventioneers did not give crap one about her. 

HOLLYWOOD ROUNDTABLE (August 28, 1963): Following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
March on Washington, seven of its participants gathered in a TV studio to discuss the civil rights movement. Moderated by journalist David Schoenbrun, the roundtable consisted of Harry Belafonte, Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Marlon Brando, and James Baldwin. 

That's one heck of a discussion group, and startling in so many ways -- not the least of which is Heston and Brando being on the same side of a liberal cause. Unlike similar broadcasts today where the idea is scoring points with meme-ready wisecracks, these folks are lowkey and thoughtful; Heston freely admits that his involvement in the civil rights movement was for too long merely cocktail party chatter. Such a thing would get you condemned today for being late to the game rather than being literally welcomed to the table.

The white guys have their own way of speaking. Heston tends to be brief, occasionally quoting the founding fathers. Mankiewicz is passionate, verging on angry, at how "the Negroes" have been treated. Brando is Brando, talking as if being paid by the word, wanting to be taken seriously as anything but an actor. If Schoenbrun hadn't interrupted him, Brando would have kept yakking all night.

Belafonte, Poitier, and Baldwin of course are the only ones who speak from
experience in regard to civil rights or lack thereof. They are serious; while likely appreciative of the white celebrities' support, the three appear to be thinking Why should I care what they have to say? They also make you sit up and listen; Baldwin's closing remarks would be considered shocking today. 

Hollywood Roundtable, filmed by the U.S. Information Agency (oh, how times have changed!) makes one yearn for the time when news and public affairs programs were civilized and made you think. Too bad a discussion about civil rights doesn't include any women, though.

BONUS POINTS: It's weirdly nostalgic seeing people on TV enveloped in cigarette and pipe smoke. 

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THE COMEBACK JACKASSES

 From London to New York, two former office holders have seen their reputations become further tarnished due to their own behavior, having gone from dazzlingly popular to voted "Least Likely to Make a Successful Comeback." 

And they dressed so darned American!

For our British brethren, it's Harry, the man who needs no second name. After Harry backtracked on his vow never to return to the homeland and his old job, he and the little lady are said to be looking for a nine-bedroom lean-to for themselves and their two are-they-or-aren't-they royal offspring in the Cotswold's. 

And that's where they're going to be spending their "working days". Pater, a/k/a King Charles, put the word out through the royal publicist just where the couple stand:

“This position, distinct from the state and royal duties undertaken by the working royal family, and with the personal latitude it brings the couple in respect of financial independence and protection of their privacy as they would wish, will continue to be fully respected. Their styles as His and Her Royal Highness remain in abeyance and are not used. [Their charitable work] is a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity. In short, their position is akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests.”

Freunde to the end.

Their styles as His and Her Royal Highness remain in abeyance. Ooh-wee! That there statement is fancy English talk for Don't call us, we won't call you. 

It seems Harry and Meghan are the Gen X Edward and Wallis, doomed to travel the globe, without a real home or titles (make that "styles"), making the occasional TV appearance with easily impressed talk show hosts. All they have to do to complete the picture is chilling with a fascist dictator. Hey, I understand there's some action going on in Germany -- just like in Edward's day!

Rudy hurt himself bending down to give
Donald Trump a happy ending one too many times.

We New Yorkers have our own clown mucking things up. In preparation for the 25th
anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Rudy Giulani took time off his busy schedule of sweating hair dye to share his thoughts regarding Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Muslims in general:

“Having lost friends [at the World Trade Center] and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming [to the memorial service].” He added for good measure, that “[Muslims] have every desire to take us over. This is not, ‘they want to be just another religion.’ They want to dominate us. […] Mamdani is a clear — a clear — supporter of that. All of the Muslims he supports are murderers.” 

That's pretty rich, considering Giuliani's administration deliberately lied about the air quality downtown in the months after 9/11. And it took our first Muslim mayor to make the information public following a quarter century of Democrat and Republican administrations quashing it -- as you know a Mayor Cuomo would have also done. (That was sarcasm, in case it wasn't clear.)

A courtroom sketch artist
captures the inner fiend.

America's Mayor-turned-America's Dracula seems to think that his kind of talk is "tough" when in truth most New Yorkers find it as hideous as his dental implants. Not content sounding crazy, he's gone past the point of being taken seriously into something sadder: pathetic. 

Meanwhile, Harry isn't at that point -- yet. It sure doesn't help that he and Meghan claim to be "surprised" at daddy-o's frosty press release when being on the outside looking in seemed to their dream.

 All they have to do is keep their heads down, raise a few shillings for whatever charity will have them, and earn an honest living -- admittedly difficult for anyone in that family -- and many Brits might forgive them. Unless they're named William and Catherine. 

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REMAKE, REMODEL

 

Soon to become the Paramount Apartments?

What happens to a company town when the company leaves? Detroit provides an answer. Los Angeles could be next.

You may have heard that the Ellison family has threatened to move Paramount and Warner Bros. from Hollywood to the more welcoming corral of Austin, Texas if the merger isn't approved. 

Everybody sing: Hooray for Bayonne-wood!

It's not like the movie business hasn't been moving for years anyway. Paramount has already signed a 10-year deal to use soundstages at 1888 Studios in -- what the? -- Bayonne, New Jersey when construction is finished in 2028. Its art deco design will hark back to the movie industry's golden age -- which, if you want to get all technical, started in New Jersey.  The area on which it stands includes 22 acres of the surrounding harbor, where even more stages will be constructed on barges. Beat that, Burbank!

View of downtown, fully furnished,
move-in-ready.

I have no dog in this fight. Yes, I have a good friend in L.A. who works in "the industry" but I believe (or hope) he's been working steadily. And it isn't like Universal, Disney, and the others will fold their gilded tents overnight and move out. Yet if you scroll through enough videos of what downtown Los Angeles looks like these days, you'd think the place was dead already.

Television production has already been sneaking out the back door. It seems like for every series filmed in L.A., there's another filming in New York, New Jersey, Canada, or, in the case of the Fox sitcom Going Dutch, Ireland. Yes, it's cheaper to film an American TV series in Ireland than keeping the all-American cast in L.A. Want to hear something screwier? The show takes place in the Netherlands. 

Ship to shore no more.

Risk-averse studios being so fond of remakes begs the question: Could Hollywood remake itself? Such a thing can be done. I know, because I come from a town that was forced to do such a thing: Newport, RI.

Rewind to 1973. Pres. Richard Nixon orders the Navy Base closed after 143 years of patriotic service. Somewhere between 14,000 to 18,000 jobs were lost, sending local unemployment up 20% and costing a billion dollars to the economy. Even the Secretary of the Navy, hauled before Congress by Sen. John Pastore, admitted it wasn't necessarily a good idea. Officially, it was a cost-cutting measure, but suspicious locals claimed Nixon was still ticked off Rhode Island voted for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. 

Newport as I don't want to remember it.

Newporters went into a panic. What would they do without all those swabbies throwing their money around at the bars, tattoo parlors, and hookers? (I don't know for a fact there was sex trade in Newport, but where there's a horny military man...)

As the last ship sailed, the locals took a second look and realized that in depending only the Navy Base and summer tourists, they had allowed much of the city, especially the downtown shopping district, go to seed. 

Almost makes me want to visit the old place again.
Almost.

Over the next few years, the downtown area underwent a radical transformation. Rickety storefronts were razed, replaced by shiny new businesses. A new road made transportation easier, streets were cleaned, and shoppers returned.

As tourism gradually became a year-round business, Revolutionary War-era houses were restored and repainted, to resemble their original selves. The long-gone Jazz and Folk Festivals returned, this time on sunny afternoons along the water, all ages welcome. No longer was the Newport Creamery the epitome of fine dining, not with all the classy restaurants popping up along Thames Street. Even my crumbling old high school was rebuilt. 

Ignore this, however.

Newport completely remade itself -- and it took a potential disaster like the Navy Base to

do it. 

Now I'm not comparing my hometown to L.A., even if it does have something called NewportFilm, described as "A year-round documentary film organization presenting screenings, filmmaker conversations, and educational programs." But if those provincial folks could revitalize their city, surely the cosmopolitan Angelenos are capable of something similar. A brand-spanking new Navy Base could do the trick! 

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