On this week’s episode of 3rd and Fairfax, the official podcast of the Writers Guild of America, the guests are developers-showrunners Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie (whose works include The Crossing and Matador. They talk about about bringing Dan Brown’s novel The Lost Symbol to the TV screen for Peacock’s new action-adventure series. This was the third in the series of Brown’s novels featuring Robert Langdon that began with The Da Vinci Code. On a totally personal note, I have a few comments about the book. (To repeat, this is about the book, not the mini-series adaptation.) As it happens, I accidentally read the book out of order, and instead read Inferno (which was subsequently made into a movie) before this. That’s just as well, because The Lost Symbol was the first of his Langdon books that I totally hated. To be clear, there’s much of the story that I thought was terrific and wonderfully adventurous, full of fun puzzles. But it veers off in certain directions that were, for me, so head-numbingly unbelievable – even in a Dan Brown World where you suspend disbelief for the pure fun of it – that they had me rolling my eyes, gritting my teeth and snarling. So much so that I lost interest in the book series, and didn’t read the latest, Origins. In fact, had I read them in order, I suspect that I wouldn’t have read Inferno. Actually, it was lucky I read Inferno out of order because, while I generally enjoyed it a lot throughout, I hated the ending – indeed I hated the ending so much that I only saw the movie after being assured by a friend who saw it that the filmmakers showed great wisdom and changed the end. In this podcast Dworkin & Beattie say they did make changes for The Lost Symbol, as well, throughout the production, though I don’t know about what, whether it's the things I thought were so awful or just others things for structural reasons. To be fair, and to acknowledge that this is all personal taste, the interviewer on the podcast enthuses that The Lost Symbol is his favorite book in the series. (Go figure…) I look forward to hearing from others who watch the series how this adaptation is different from the book. Though even if they fixed every one of the problems (to me), I still haven’t decided if I’ll watch. (For those specifically interested in conversation about the adaptation, that begins around the 24-minute mark.) I know this is tangential to the podcast here, but…well, I hated the book so much I thought it worth adding.
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On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is Bowen Yang of Saturday Night Live. His interview is pretty low-key, and largely centers on him getting hired on SNL and his years there.
This the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 17:30 mark.
On this week’s Al Franken podcast, his guest is author Michael Wolff who discusses “Trump’s disastrous last year of POTUS,” which as Al puts it, “the chilling, yet hilarious saga of a deeply insane President.”
Yesterday, when posting that opening song performed by J.K. Simmons from Episode 2 of this current, final season of the Amazon series, Goliath, I mentioned that most viewers were likely surprised by his talent as a song-and-dance man. In fact, as I noted, Simmons has a background in musicals and even appeared in such Broadway shows as a revival of Guys and Dolls (that starred Nathan Lane) and starring as 'Capt. Hook' in a 1991 revival of Peter Pan. I thought I'd present some evidence of this talent. So, here are three videos -- one, just audio, and another an absolute gem treat. Trust me on this. We'll start with a video from the 1992 production of Guys and Dolls, where he played the small, but notable role of 'Benny Southstreet'. The camera is largely on Nathan Lane, but it eventually widens to see the full cast and featured performers. This is the song, "The Oldest Established," and you'll see J.K. Simmons cross in the background in his striped purple suit at the 35-second mark -- and later, he'll be more pronounced. (Actually, you can see him in the freeze frame below on the right -- that's who to look for.) This is also from that production of Guys and Dolls, though only audio from the Original Cast Recording. But it's such a prominent song, and Simmons is one of the two people performing it, that I felt it had to be included. This is the famous, wonderful title song. It's sung by 'Nicely-Nicely Johnson' (played here by Walter Bobbie) and Simmons as 'Benny.' (By the way, for those who like to put a face to the name: in the previous video, that's Walter Bobbie in the center freeze-frame above -- in a plaid, turquoise suit and bow-tie. In the video itself, he's generally to Nathan Lane's right - flanked by Simmons on Lane's left.) The first voice you hear in this title song will be J.K. Simmons, who has the slighly deeper voice. He next comes in with the verse, "What's in the Daily News? I'll tell you what's in the Daily News." But finally, this is the real treat -- for several reasons. It comes from a benefit for the UBU Project in 2020. The first reason is that J.K. Simmons gets to stand alone here and give a wonderful solo performance with the showstopping number, "I, Don Quixote," from Man of La Mancha. The other reason is that the person singing the role of 'Sancho Panza' is…his brother, David Simmons. I knew nothing about David Simmons, other than it says he is the founder of the UBU Project and also that he's excellent here. (On further checking, he has an extensive career as a performer, director, educator and lecture. And the mission statement of the UBU Project is "The prevention of youth suicide, addiction and bullying through social/emotional arts integration residencies.") Great, too, is that their voices are totally different from one another which fits the song properly -- 'Quixote' sung as a tenor/baritone, and 'Sancho' is a high counter-tenor. Further, 'Don Quixote' is the tall, leading man, while 'Sancho' is always played by a short, squat actor. It's all perfect here. And they're absolutely wonderful. They should do the show together. On Wednesday, a friend called me – a bit distressed (not to the point of panic) – to ask if I’d heard that people were saying Joe Manchin was thinking of dropping out of the Democratic Party. I said, yes, but that it wasn’t a case of “people were saying,” but that one reporter, David Corn, had written an article about it for Mother Jones. That doesn’t make it untrue – actually, he’s an excellent reporter – just proper perspective.
What I said beyond that, though, was that while it’s always been possible that Machin could quit the Democratic Party, something I’ve written about often on social media when people get especially vociferous about Manchin and call him a Republican, it’s also something I consider unlikely. It really takes a great deal for a politician in Congress to switch parties, that they just are so deeply out of step with their party and have much more in kinship with the other. And Manchin’s been a lifelong Democrat in a deeply Red state that voted for Trump by 40 points, so being “so deeply out of step” is second nature to him. If he felt the Republican Party had more to offer him, he had decades to switch and make his life easier for himself in West Virginia, yet he stayed a Democrat and was elected the Secretary of State and then Governor – and then U.S. Senator. And it’s not like he’s grown closer to today’s GOP, since it’s been moving so far to the right that it’s now fascist. So, I don’t expect Joe Manchin to switch and become a Republican. Not just for the reasons above, but especially too since he knows that would mean his lifelong party losing control of the Senate and turning leadership over to Mitch McConnel and all committee chairmanships to Republicans. He certainly could become a Republican – I just think it’s deeply unlikely. What I think is more likely if he drops out of the Democratic Party – and again, I reiterate that that’s an “if” and something I think unlikely -- it’s that he would do so and become an Independent. And if he did that, I told my friend that I was sure he would still caucus with Democrats (like Sen. Angus King of Maine does), which would keep the 50 vote plus Vice President majority with the Democratic Party. Consider: Joe Manchin was given the opportunity by Majority Leader Schumer to put together his own version of a voting rights bill and developed one that he was certain could attract enough Republican votes to pass. He got zero votes from Republicans -- not zero to vote for his bill, but to merely just debate it. Earlier in the year, when the Democrat's $1.9 trillion Stimulus Bill passed, Manchin voted for it. Zero Republicans did. As much as many Democratic voters want to think Joe Manchin is a "Republican," in the real world, he's not even close. He's a moderate to conservative Democrat. And today's fascist Republican Party is at odds with much of what Manchin has been his long political career. That’s what I said on Wednesday. Then yesterday, I saw an interview with the author of the story, David Corn, who said the same thing. That if Joe Manchin dropped out of the Democratic Party, he’d still caucus with them. What Corn also said is that it’s possible Machin has said different things to different people. So, he may have told other Democrats as forcefully as he told the press on Wednesday that he wasn’t leaving the party. And Corn added that Manchin may also have said to others the more toned-down story he told reporters earlier in the day, that he told Majority Leader Chuck Schumer if it was ever an embarrassment and caused problems for Democrats to have him in the party, he’d step aside as an Independent. (In fact, he himself added that if Schumer ever wanted him to do that...he'd caucus with the Democrats.) Corn additionally stood by his own reporting that Manchin told at least some people that if he didn’t get what he wanted, he’d considered dropping out of the Party – though even that could have been a negotiating ploy. The point being that all three could be true. The additional point is that even if Joe Manchin dropped out of the Democratic Party (which, again, I doubt will happen), he will continue to caucus with the party, and Democrats will hold their majority in this Congress. |
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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