Occasionally you hear the phrase, "the royalty of..." and fill in the blank for whatever the field is. Music is fairly common, and someone will reference the royalty of music. And it's not uncommon for them to use a bit of hyperbole. Sometimes not though. This is one of those times. Here is Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Pearl Bailey singing together. People have their favorites, and tastes change over time -- but you'll have to travel a long ways to get a whole lot more regal than this at any time or place when it comes to the ladies singing jazz.
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Salon.com has a long article shredding some idiotic things that declared-GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson says about fighting war. I got about one paragraph in and then stopped, when I realized something --
Why should I or anyone care even the slightest whit what Ben Carson has to say as a "presidential candidate"?? Yes, I know he declared he's running. For all I know he's qualified to get on the ballot in several primary states. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he just said he's running and that's good enough. High standards, indeed. But let's assume he has qualified. Let's even assume that he's qualified in all 50 states, and let's throw in Puerto Rico for good measure. I'm guessing, too, that he's a very fine neurosurgeon. I have no idea if his books are good, but some have been popular, so let's give him that, for the heck of it. Let's even add that he whenever writes a column for the Washington Times, it might be really wonderful, for all I know. Moreover, George W. Bush awarded him the Medal of Freedom. (Though in fairness, Mr. Bush gave out the Medal of Freedom like it was Halloween candy. If you helped suck the nation into the Iraq War. you could get a Medal of Freedom from President Bush.) The question still stands. Why on earth should anyone care one whit what "Ben Carson" has to say as an actual, supposedly serious "presidential candidate"? This is a real job, being President of the United States, y'know. It's quite difficult, I'm told, and is very important. It not only makes someone the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. armed forces, but the Most Powerful Man in the World!! (Or woman, if Hilary Clinton runs, and wins.) So why is any media wasting precious airspace covering Ben Carson? They could use that same time to cover something more important -- anything more important, like who will Jennifer Lawrence be wearing on the Red Carpet for Oscar Night? And when I ask about why is the media wasting even a hairsbreath, I include the conservative media who like that what Ben Carson writes is quite conservative and that he talks about faith. Because this is the same conservative media that did its best to try and shred Barack Obama when he ran for President, crying that he didn't have enough experience, still crying it -- even though he has six years experience being President, at this point. But he had been a U.S. Senator for two years and had been an elected state senator in Illinois for 12 years. Compared to Ben Carson, Sarah Palin was highly qualified to be president. And Sarah Palin was barely qualified to be mayor of Wasilla. I understand that Ben Carson falls into that same category of "Goofy Republican Candidates Who Want to Get the Attention So They Can Boost Their Speaking Fees on the Lecture Circuit" -- like Donald Trump and the Pizza Guy. But just because he gets a place at the dinner table doesn't mean anyone has to listen, anymore than you'd listen to your drunk, crazy uncle at Thanksgiving. And I understand that being a goofball candidate makes for "good copy" to the media, if your definition of "good copy" is a few steps below, "I can see Russia from my front yard." Now, I suspect some people might be wondering why I myself am spending so much time writing here about Ben Carson. It's a reasonable thing to ponder, but I'm not discussing his positions -- I didn't even mention what the Salon article was about -- just the reality of him existing. And this is more about the media and its priorities. Ben Carson isn't getting the Republican nomination for president. For one thing, he's black, and the GOP has shown for the past six years what they think about having a black man in the White House. And of course there's the whole, "he's head-bangingly unqualified" thing. Ben Carson isn't going to get 1% of the vote. He's not getting named to the ticket. And anyone who thinks otherwise, I'm happy to make a cash-money bet for any large amount, straight up. He's not a "long shot." He's a "the water pistol is empty" no shot. The point here is that, as empty as I think most of the serious GOP candidates are, one of them will be get the nomination. And I want to hear them, and I want the public to hear them. Because this is important what they have to say. It's important to hear Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Rand Paul (R-KY) not support every child getting vaccinations. It's important to hear Scott Walker (R-WI) "punt" on whether he believes in evolution. And every second spent on Ben Carson and whatever other clown candidate may decide to join in takes away from what is seriously important, time we will never get back. And covering the Ben Carsons of the world only serves to encourage the next media whore who wants his face in your living room, much like the egomaniacal fool who jump over the wall at a baseball stadium and run around the field because the camera covers him -- before the security guards body slam him into the ground and hauled off to jail. Now, that might stop Ben Carson from his kind of "running", too. If Dr. Carson knew that at some point, he would get body slammed with a crushing force, he might give this a second thought. Maybe not. But it sure would make his self-aggrandizing fake campaign more interesting for the viewing public. No doubt you've been curious about what in the world the Guiness World Record is for the largest Kaikottikali dance ever. Well, the record was broken just two weeks ago on February 2 with 5211 dancers, choreographed by Jitha Binoy for the Thanima 2015 arts festival in Irinjalakuda, India. I'm not sure what the previous record had been. This was performed before an audience of 55,000 and took almost 11 months to plan. It's not the most vibrant dance in the world, though it's certainly an impressive effort to undertake. But for all the attention the choreographer has gotten for this, I want to know who did the costumes and wardrobe, since they're all wearing the same thing. This wasn't just "Okay, people, see you tomorrow, show up at the shrine at 11 AM. Wear something light and comfortable to dance in." Mainly though I'm posting it because I love the title I came up with for it. A few years back, I wrote a piece explaining my observation that the Republican Party has had a war on education for at least the past 72 years, ever since they took on Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson in 1952 as being "an egghead," in other words...smart. And has continued through the years up to George W. Bush proclaiming "No Child Left Behind" and then not funding it, and almost-proudly pushing today's mistrust of science.
But Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) may have topped them all -- which is no small things, since it includes Richard Nixon putting college students high on his Enemies List -- continuing the GOP tradition of demeaning education by proposing a $300 million cut from the budget of the University of Wisconsin over the next two years, a slashing of 13%. I don't know if this seems like a lot to most people or not, so let's put it into terms that are easier to grasp -- Rebecca M. Blank, chancellor of the university's Madison campus, the largest in the state system, told the New York Times that the cuts being proposed by Mr. Walker were so massive that if she completely eliminated five schools — nursing, business, law, pharmacy and veterinary medicine — she would "still have to find other ways to trim costs." I can see his campaign slogan already -- "Let's eliminate debt and America's future." Most analysis of the governor's proposals has suggested that they were made, not so much for any substantive reason, but rather to separate him from the pack of his rivals hoping to get the GOP nomination for president. In other words, it's largely a political maneuver, gutting the state's college education system for political gain. As craven as some people might see that, it might almost be less so than the fact that Gov. Walker was out of the country, on his "See, I have foreign credentials" traipse to London when the announcement was made. Some might consider that cowardly, though most likely Mr. Walker just looks at it as a quirk in the time warp continuum. As you might imagine, there has been a rise of outrage in many parts of the state. So, with the Republican Party still in control of the statehouse, we'll have to see how this all plays out, following the governor's earlier efforts to gut unions. I suspect that in some ways this will play well to the conservative base of the Republican Party, on board with hating education and college students and the concept of people trying to be smart. Most presidential candidates, however, prefer to do everything possible not to have any controversy back in their home state while campaigning, and that simply isn't going to happen with this in Wisconsin, where protests have already begun, so it might prove a problem for the governor. How it will play with the general public is another matter entirely. In recent years, Republican candidates have made it a tradition to run as far to the radical right as they possibly can in order to get their party's nomination, and then try desperately to somehow get back to the center for the general election . Once upon a time, some candidates had success with that. But as the GOP has gotten more and more and more fringe conservative, it's meant the farther to the right candidates have had to go, thereby making it a challenge to find the chewy nougat center. It ended up crushing Mitt Romney. But presidential politics aside...what a galling action to take. Just what America needs today in the growing competition of a world economy -- a less-educated generation. To those who watched the Saturday Night Live 40 special last night and felt you only got a smattering of John Belushi, this is for you. And for anyone who likes history and comedy. Several years ago, I was overjoyed to track down the audio tape of one of the classic sketches in the history of Chicago's legendary comedy club, Second City, And calling something a "classic sketch" from Second City is saying a LOT, considering who has performed there over the decades. One of those in the early '70s was John Belushi. He was in a good company that included Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty of SCTV, among others. But Belushi, not surprisingly, leapt out. You always heard about John Belushi. And it was sketch in particular that people kept bringing up -- the Funeral Sketch. It was where Belushi's high school kid character and his mother great mourners at the funeral of his father who died when...well, we'll hold that thought, but let's just say a less than noble way. Belushi doesn't have a lot of dialogue in the sketch, but his controlled-rage reaction at such a somber occasion is what made the piece so memorable. (I didn't see it with John, but did see the sketch done later with his younger brother Jim in the role.) Tracking down that audio was a comic joy, and I couldn't believe my luck. But it turns out that that was nothing. Because I have here a video of the sketch! Yes, John Belushi on stage at Second City in the "Funeral Sketch." And it includes Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty, among several other other the great cast members who remain wildly-popular in Chicago comedy lore. Here's the write-up from the Second City site -- "This week's clip comes from Second City's 1972 revue 43rd Parallel or McCabre & Ms. Miller directed by the theater's legendary improv guru Del Close. In the above sketch "Funeral," John Belushi plays the humiliated son of a father who died a less-than-respectable death alongside ensemble performers Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis, Jim Fisher, Judy Morgan, and Eugenie Ross-Leming as his grieving friends and family." The video quality isn't great, and you'll have to strain to catch some of the jokes and dialogue, but...well, really, so what. That this exists is amazing. Sorry for the lateness of this, but at 6 PM Los Angeles time today (Monday), the Sundance Channel is re-airing the three-part story on Law & Order about a celebrity murder of a Hollywood studio executive. It's one of the best "episodes" of the series, in large part because they're able to delve into such detail and fill it with numerous twists and turns.
When I first watch the three-parter it was as a re-rerun and so I didn't see it in context, and because I tuned in part of the way into first episode, it wasn't until into the third part that I realized this was one of their "ripped from the headlines" things -- Law & Order's version of the O.J. Simpson trial. It's extremely well done, written by Ed Zuckerman (who I used to play softball with, in a weekly WGA-group of ragtag ballplayers), Rene Balcer, and Gardner Stern. There's a very solid cast, as well, including Lauren Graham, Janine Garofolo and Broadway actor Paul Hecht as the psychiatrist (he was in the original cast of 1776 as John Dickinson, as well as Harnick and Bock's The Rothschilds, and got a Tony nomination for Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.) The three parts are titled "D-Girl," "Turnarounda" and "Showtime." If you're a regular viewer of Law & Order, and it's unending re-runs, you've no doubt seen this. But if you only check in once in while, or only rarely watched, it's well-worth tuning in, or at least recording, to zip through the commercials at a more convenient time. Without the ads, this only runs about 2:15, which is about like watching a feature-length film -- which in many ways, this is. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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