Years ago, back in 1975, its first year, in fact, Saturday Night Live had what is still one of my favorite of their parody TV ads. Gillette had not much earlier introduced twin blades (that shows you how long ago it was), the Trac II, and SNL did an ad that right up until the very last line looked absolutely real. It was for the Gillette Triple-Trac. The commercial showed how shaving had progressed since the caveman, and Gillette were now introducing a triple-blade, and even included an animation to show why this was better with less pull. The ad built to -- Announcer (V/O): Blade number two catches and digs into the stubble before it has the chance to snap back and injure you, pulling it farther out so that it is now ready for shearing. Triple-Trac's third blade, a finely-honed bonded platinum instrument, cuts cleanly through the whisker at its base, leaving your face as smooth as a billiard ball. And it was all believable -- until the very next line. The great last line: "The Triple-Trac. Because you'll believe anything." The audience went wild, roaring with laughter, having been tricked. And of course, eventually they were proven right, as companies did indeed come out with a triple blade, and then quattro blades and now five-blade cartridge. The joke would have been perfect if not for the fact that the upgraded cartridges actually are better. If you are someone who a) shaves, and b) uses a blade razor, keep reading. If you don't fall into either category, this probably isn't for you. But hey, you never know. (Side Note digression: in that SNL parody, the role of the caveman was played by one of their writers. Now-Senator Al Franken.) Okay, moving forward -- a couple years ago, when I was covering the Consumer Electronics Show, I passed a booth for, of all companies, Schick. Not expecting to see a safety razor company at an electronics show, my curiosity was won, so I went over. It turned out that they were introducing a battery-operated razor that vibrated, ostensibly to duplicate the action of an electric razor but with the closeness of a blade shave. They gave me one of these Hyrdo 5 Power Select razors and a pack of two five-blade cartridges. I remember discussing with the Schick reps my sense of the playing field -- that the five-blades were probably best (I hadn't tried one, but had tried a four-blade cartridge), but for the price, I really liked the three-blades which seemed to give me the best bang-for-the-buck, at least over the quattros. The reps were high on this new five-blade thing, but didn't really disagree with my reasoning. They should have. They gave up the discussion too early. I got back to Los Angeles though didn't use my new gift-razor for a while. Eventually though I got around to it -- and was stunned by how good it was. An extremely smooth and comfortable shave, and so close there was no "five o'clock shadow" until it was more like a 10-o'clock shadow. That said, I never quite grasped the concept of the vibrating razor. Maybe it adds something -- it feels like it's doing something -- but I could never get the idea of what it was doing. Most of the time I just left the switch off. And that's where I left it, because I still figured -- good as the shave was -- my regular three-blades were the best deal by far. It seemed like the 5-blade cartridge lasted a long time, but I'd never checked the day I started, so I just didn't know how long it had been. And I knew they cost more anyway, so I forgot about it and moved on. A year or so passed. One day, my Sunday newspaper pull-out had a coupon for Schick five-blade cartridges. It was a good deal, so I figured, what the heck. I bought a pack. And that's where I started to pay attention. I marked down when I began to shave with the blades, to see how many shaves I could get and then figure out if my theory was right. (Hint: it wasn't.) When not on sale, a four-pack of Schick 3-blade cartridges works out to about $2.95 per cartridge. The Schick Hydro 5 comes to about $3.60 a cartridge. For easy math purposes, that's around 20% more.
Okay, so when I use a 3-blade cartridge, I generally get 2-3 weeks out of it. (Some people are far more picky than I am and get much less. What can I say, I'm just a macho guy. But I can only go by me for comparison purposes.) Occasionally I'll get what I call a "Magic Blade" and it will last a bizarrely long time. But for the most part, two weeks is what I get out of a blade. By that calculation, I should get 20% more shaves to break even with the more expansive cost of the Hydro 5. That would work out to 17 shaves. But let's be generous and round up and say three weeks, maybe a touch more. Are you ready? I got four. But no, not weeks -- months. Four MONTHS. From one blade. Now, maybe this was a fluke, one of those "Magic Blades." But I recall my much-earlier blade seeming to last a very long time, so I think not. I haven't had a chance to test another blade yet, though, because...well, because I'm still on this one! I can tell it's just about at the end of its cycle though, so the next test will be soon. And I want to be clear, when I say "four months," these were really good, clean, smooth, close shaves. No dragging the edge. Not feeling like using a rough, rusty spoon. But feeling like the blade was near new, and having it give a terrific shave. So, as for that whole "the 3-blade cartridge is a better deal" thing? No way, out the window, gone with the window. The 5-blade Hydro blows it out of the water. Not just far, far more shaves, but better shaves, as well. One last thing. I have no idea if the Schick razor is better than the Gillette. Or if one of their 5-blade cartridges is better. ProGlide, Fusion, Hydro, Quattro, Bic, whatever. That's another convoluted matter. I'm just looking at apple to apple -- the same company's 3-blade and 5-blade cartridges. I know that there is a saying, "Less is more." But regardless of what SNL was joking about all those years ago, the difference to me is very clear. Sometimes, more is actually more.
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With so many Republican state legislatures passing restrictive Voter ID laws to make voting my minorities difficult, it is with great surprise that, of all people, the conservative Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said on Monday that he wants to pass legislation to fix the part of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court and allowed all these GOP actions. The High Court wasn't against the pure section of the rule itself, but felt there were things in that were specifically unconstitutional. It's those things that Mr. Sensenbrenner wants to fix so that the law would hold up to Court scrutiny.
“The first thing we have to do is take the monkey wrench that the court threw in it, out of the Voting Rights Act," he said, "and then use that monkey wrench to be able to fix it so that it is alive, well, constitutional and impervious to another challenge that will be filed by the usual suspects.” Moreover, he wants this finished and passed now. By the end of the year. That's only four months away. The shock in all this is that it's Jim Sensenbrenner -- no fan of anything not far right -- who is proposing the law. What I wonder is how much this is the sort of "Nixon opening the door to China" kind of thing, where it takes a conservative to propose the fix, so that it's not seen as a purely liberal issue. And given that the last time Congress voted on this law not long ago, and the vote was close to unanimous, it's not unreasonable to think that there actually is great bipartisan support for it, so a conservative Republican broaching the issue may not be totally shocking. Furthermore, it's possible that Republicans leaders see the huge backlash rising against these draconian laws, most notably in North Carolina and Texas, and want to stop the bleeding. It also seems that, baring some huge monkey wrench of Congress' own, this would be something that can reasonably pass. After all, it just needs 218 votes, and Democrats should vote near-unanimously for it. Right now they have 208 members of the House. If "only" 200 of the Democrats vote for it, then a mere 18 Republicans would have to vote for it. And since it's being proposed by a leading conservative Republican, you have to figure that he knows he has far more than 18 votes of support on his side of the aisle. That only leaves the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats. It would seem therefore that the only hurdle is if some Republican Senator decides to filibuster the issue, which would seem to be a death wish by the GOP. So...it is with a positive sense of caution that would make this problem appear to be able to be resolved. Yipes. And cautiously huzzah... Last week, I had footage here of Julie Andrews re-creating her famous and alas never-filmed role as Eliza Doolittle on a special hour-long tribute to Lerner & Lowe on The Ed Sullivan Show. As I mentioned, though the broadcast was mainly a salute to the career of the songwriting team, the songwriters themselves chose to use 15-20 minutes of it to promote their then-current musical, Camelot. Camelot had had a troubled pre-Broadway tryout. It was running very long (almost four hours at one point), and then the director Moss Hart had a heart attack and needed to leave the show. Lyricist and book writer Lerner took over the directing reins and, while not solving all the problems, at least got the show into working condition as it limped into Broadway. (In his memoir, The Street Where I Live, Lerner has a great line about working on problems in shows, advice that I've always remembered and is good for many areas of life. He wrote that sometimes when you fix something, you think you've made it good, when all you're really done is make it less bad.) Anyway, when Camelot finally opened on Broadway in 1969, it got mediocre reviews and mediocre box office. It was able to survive because it had such huge advance ticket sales, being the next show from the team who had most-recently done My Fair Lady and with that show's same star Julie Andrews and also Richard Burton. But the creative team knew the advance would eventually run out. As a result, their decision, with Ed Sullivan's approval, to promote Camelot. (Because Julie Andrews was starring in the show, that allowed for the added benefit of having her there to re-create her role of Eliza Doolittle, as well. Thank goodness.) The public response to the material from Camelot was so explosive that the next morning Lerner got a phone call to come down to the Majestic Theatre, where the show was playing. He thought there was a problem, but when he arrived he saw lines literally around the block. The new influx of money gave the show more time, and that allowed director Moss Hart to recover and return. With his work and new efforts by Lerner and Lowe, Camelot was finally put into the shape that made it a legendary musical. It ran for 873 performance, over two years. But the original show on Broadway was different, which is why some of the songs on the cast album are no longer in the musical. Here are three selections from that now-famous Ed Sullivan Show broadcast. At first, I was intended to include them all here in one post because they were so short. But watch and read on, there is a bonus treat. But I've decided to keep them all together, anyway. Here first is a short segment of the wonderful title number, "Camelot" And not the bonus treat. Originally, I had a short, minute-long segment of Burton and Andrews singing the charming, "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" But at the last minute before posting this, I decided to take one last look (because hey, you all deserve a last look) -- and found the entire song! The sound quality isn't as good, it's a little tinny, but it's thoroughly listenable. And five minutes of this trumps the other, by far. And finally, here are two minutes of an unknown Robert Goulet becoming famous before your eyes. And the next morning, there were lines around the block of the Majestic Theatre. Driving around town, I've been seeing billboards for the upcoming TV series, Hostages. I saw a promo for it a while ago and...well, I have to admit I don't get what they're going for. I have to assume they do, and have to assume there's a lot that I'm missing. But I'm still missing it.
To be clear, I think this is a great premise for a movie. A doctor's family is kidnapped and held hostage, and she has to do something to help the kidnapper kill the President of the United States. It might even make a great three-part miniseries. Or five parts. But I'm scratching my head how they're going to stretch this for full 22-episode season. Let me correct that: I'm scratching my head how they're going to stretch this out for five years. That's what most networks would just love for their investment in a series. But five years aside, I'm not even sure how they'd get a second year out of this. Let alone the first. I know that the series 24 was able to stretch a single day into a full season, one hour a week. But that show gave the protagonist a monumental world event to resolve, and each hour had him in some action-packed thriller to uncover and get him closer to his task -- and they still only got a single year out of it. They had to come up with a whole new disaster the next season. What is this show going to do? Have a new kidnapping every year? I suppose they could. It would seem to be a tad repetitive, though. But further, even accepting that they can stretch the plot out for a whole year -- you have two main characters, as far as I can tell: 1) someone who is a restricted, manipulated victim, and 2) a terrorist trying to kill the president. Neither of these strike me as people I want to invite into my home week after week. After week after week.... I'm sure the doctor tries to figure a way out of this dilemma each week. But unlike 24 where every episode has an exciting event that gets him accomplishing something to bring him one step closer to resolving the terrorist attack -- on Hostages each week, whatever it is that the doctor does, whatever she accomplishes, the family is still going to be held hostage at the end of the episode. She would seem back to square one. I will guess that she gets others involved, little by little. But it would have to be a small, ineffective circle because that family still has to stay hostages. And I'm sure that the terrorist kidnapper will be a compelling character. But the thing is, once the family is kidnapped, he doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do until the last episode. And that's still accepting that they can stretch this frustration out for one whole year. That still leaves seasons 2-5. I'm sure I'm missing something. For the network's sake, I hope I am. The one-line premise is wonderful. And I'm equally sure the networks and writers can explain their concept of why this all will work and be compelling for years. But I'm also sure the Titanic looked good on paper, too. And yes, I know that the Titanic did work great as a movie. But can you imagine watching that ship go down week after week? For years... None of this means I'm right. I'm just scratching my head to figure out why I'm wrong. On Sunday, ABC's This Week did a broadcast commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's march on Washington for civil rights. Not surprisingly, the topic of voting restrictions being passed by many Republican-controlled state legislatures was discussed. One of the panelists, Cokie Roberts, referred to these laws as "downright evil."
It will come as a shock, I'm sure, to learn that far-right columnist George Will, also on the panel, had a very different idea on what it was that was an even bigger problem to the black community. It was not voting restrictions. It was not a lack of civil rights. It was not unemployment or low wages. No, it's African-American children being born to unmarried women, he said. "That, not an absence of rights is surely the biggest impediment.” Surely. Actually, I'm a little surprised by Mr. Will's qualifier. Somehow, I wouldn't be amazed to discover that American-American children being born, period, would be a concern to him. But maybe not. What prompted his comments was a famous report headed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan and published less an a year after King's march 50 years ago which said it was a "crisis" that "24 percent of African-American children are being born to unmarried women.” “Today, it’s tripled, 72 percent,” George Will commented with great, mock-concern for black people. Forgetting for a moment whether the black community would agree with George Will that it's a bigger crisis to their community to have children born into a family without fathers or not being allowed to vote, be without job and not have living wages -- what George Will conveniently left out of his simplistic comment was the percentage of white children being born to unmarried women. According to that same study, reported here, which he quoted, that number is -- 29%. Keep in mind that the Moynihan report said that 24% was a crisis in the black community. Now, it's possible that George Will would think it's 29% of single-parent white families was a crisis, as well. He probably does. But he just doesn't seem stressed about it, as far as crises goes. None of this is to say that 72% is not a high number. It's very high. Whether a child raised in a single-parent family is not getting the nurturing, love and support it needs, is another matter. One would think that if there are two similar single-parent families, and one of those families has a a job, a living wage, civil rights and voting rights, and the other is discriminated against in almost every way, then that first household will have a more substantial grounding. And be a far-greater "impediment." Of course, with an attitude like George Will's, it's not surprising that he doesn't think voting restrictions on the black community is as big an issue. Not only might he feel differently if he and his community were being restricted from voting, but -- I get the feeling that George Will is just fine with the black community not voting. period. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe George Will will surprise me. I look forward to that day. Having written yesterday about the wonderful little independent movie Belizaire the Cajun yesterday, you may have discovered that it's not readily available to find. However, there are several sites that have free movies which carry it. I don't know how these "free movie" sites work, never having used them. I have no idea if they're legitimate or not, though since they're so public it would seem they'd be easily shut down. Perhaps they license the films, perhaps they don't. And why they have access to stream them but Netflix doesn't -- no idea. But if you're interested, here are two of the sites I came across. There may be a subscription fee (which somewhat defeats the purpose of "free," though once you subscribe that's where the "free" kicks in) -- but the OV Guide site here shows a Free Trial button. Or there may not be a subscription fee, as the Snag Films site here somewhat suggests. That aside, there's a very nice article about the movie on the New Orleans Times-Picayune website here for the film's 25th anniversary DVD re-release two years ago. Among other things, it notes that director Glen Pitre got a big boost towards making Belizaire the Cajun after he had been invited to attend a month-long "boot camp" at the Sundance Institute. And finally, here's a trailer. Voyez la bas. |
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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