On this week’s Naked Lunch podcast, hosts Phil Rosenthal and David Wild write that “You good people tell us that you absolutely LOVE it when Phil & David Phone It In, so here's another of our free-for-all ‘Naked Lunch’ Call In episodes. This time around, Phil and David offered to provide any relationship advice -- much to the amusement of their loved ones -- but mostly you wanted to talk about the most important things in life -- food, music and ‘Somebody Feel Phil’.”
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I've posted a lot of videos here of the wonderful Tom Lehrer, including some rare material that he wrote and performed for his fellow professors at the University of California, Santa Cruz which fortunately got privately recorded. (Lehrer had taught political science at MIT, and later went to UCSC to teach mathematics -- and even also taught a class in musical theater.) But a couple weeks ago, my pal Mark Evanier had a rarity on his site -- a TV performance by Lehrer with a song I'd never heard before. And it's a lot of fun. The number is in the spirit of his song "New Math." He was appearing in England on one of David Frost's TV shows (I don't know which one, nor does Mark), and he performed a song he wrote for the occasion. He explains how to convert the old British pounds/shillings system to the new decimal currency, like in the United States, that they were going to be changing to in 1971. You can find the song here on Mark's website. And as a bonus, for the folks who like to compare, here is that aforementioned song, "New Math," from his great albums That Was the Year That Was. There are similar offers for two streaming services which I wanted to mention in case they're to anyone's attention here.
Both Hulu and Peacock TV are having Black Friday sales on their websites. The offers are for $1.99 a month for 12 months. (You can cancel at any time -- though for $1.99 a month, it's almost worth keeping it in case they end up having a movie or series later on that interests you.) Peacock TV has an additional offer -- $19.99 if you sign up for the full year. That's two months free, or the equivalent of $1.67 a month. The one caveat is that these Black Friday offers are all for the ad-supported services. I'll mention that I signed up for this same Hulu offer last year (I'm not eligible for it this year...), and was fine with the ad-supported plan. They only have a few ad breaks for each show and tend to be about 90 seconds to two minutes. Never longer, sometimes less. And they have a little clock counting down the time left in the ads, which I love. I keep a book by my chair and read during the break, knowing how much time I have -- or run some "errand" in another room.) For $1.99, I found it well-worth it. If I watched Hulu a lot, I don't know if I'd have gotten the ad-supported plan. But because I don't watch Hulu a lot, that's why I tried it out this way. (And it turned out that I found more things that I watched than I expected it.) And that's why I never paid for Peacock TV before. They didn't have much that interested me. But there are about 4-5 movies I have on my "Peacock List" that I do want to see, and was going to sign up for a month to watch them all. However, that would cost $12 for a no-ads plan. So, for just eight dollars more, I'm getting it for the whole year, during which time they might have some more movies I want to see, or series. Plus they carry Big Ten sports (like my beloved Northwestern...), which includes things not on my standard Big Ten cable channel. Anyway, that's the deal. Do with it what you will... Just to be clear, as you read this below, it is what Trump wrote as his Thanksgiving Day greeting to Americans as he runs to be president of the United States. I know it's pretty clear, but I say this because I also feel it's important to write something first before you get to it, because beginning this piece directly with Trump's message and no buffer is too much a jolt to the system. Okay, then, here is Trump's Thanksgiving greeting. Happy Thanksgiving, from Trump! I suspect strongly -- in all, full honesty -- that if Trump's "Happy Thanksgiving" greeting had been posted under anyone else's name, and it was used as evidence that that person shouldn't be given joint custody of an ex-couple's DOG, he would not get custody of the DOG. Additionally, not knowing exactly how such things work in court, I wouldn't be surprised if he was also ordered to have a psychiatric session. At the very least, he would have a restraining order placed on him. (By the way, I originally wrote that a court wouldn't grant joint custody to this fictional person's “child.” But although I thought that that image was properly gut-wrenching to envision -- and make the further point that if such a person couldn't be allowed to be in charge of a single child, how could he even manage being in charge of an entire country of 325 million people, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces and having the ability to launch nuclear attack -- I decided that not being allowed to share a dog was even more to the point. Actually, I almost made it "pet goldfish," but since I wasn't aware of couples fighting in court over such a thing, I decided to go with "dog." And then felt even that wasn’t quite right, and made it "DOG.") But to be clear, as mentally disturbed and dangerous as his pathetic rant was, this is not about Trump, by now we all know who he is -- a racist, anti-Semitic, fascist, pathological lying, malignant narcissist who literally echoes Hitler. After all, the country is full of self-possessed, crazy racists who can’t grasp reality, but not a single one of the others has a major political party following them, swamping all of his party opponents by 45 points. It's about the elected GOP officials who still enable him -- and Republican voters who continue to support him because they "like the judges he'll nominate," or whatever self-justifying reason they've convinced themselves of -- willfully closing their eyes and ears and minds to what they know is the larger truth. Or even those worshipping acolytes who are too empty to know. It's worth noting the social media post that President Biden put out on Thanksgiving. Interestingly, this appears to be much more low-key than Trump's head-exploding meltdown Happy Thanksgiving cry-for-help rant attacking at all his current, biggest enemies. Whenever I see an out-of-control, ad hominem public attack on someone -- which sadly happens relentlessly too often (and “once” is too often) -- whether against a public figure or private individuals like the Georgia poll worker and her mother, and the New York City court clerk, which can not only uproot their lives, but even put them at risk, I always think of a story that Harry Truman wrote about. I believe it was in his memoir Mr. Citizen. I can recall the details exactly -- I read this about 35 years ago -- but I know I’m very close. Several years after leaving office, Truman was giving a lecture. I think it may have been at a college. And a young man there asked Truman a question that rubbed him the wrong way, and Truman took the student to task. And he continued on with the lecture. Afterwards, however, Truman said he realized how impactful the words of someone who had been President could be on a person, especially somebody young, and how much it could stress them and even affect their life, being spoken to harshly and in public by a former President. And so Truman said he went and found the young man and apologized. And then there’s – Over and over and over. Sometimes shorter, sometimes even worse. Like, y'know, echoing Hitler. But over and over and over. I think of that Truman passage of lot. But this is not about Trump, no matter how unstable and fascist he may be. It’s about every person in the Republican who tolerates him. Enables him. Supports him. And, even putting everything else he’s done aside – including echoing Hitler and planning for internment camps, banning travel based on religion, and undermining the Constitution – is simply okay with any human being (never mind a former president who is running for re-election) writing something like this publicly. It's about today’s Republican Party that wants that man to lead them. For anyone who is still wondering why the GOP today is called fascist, that’s why. And for anyone upset at the Republican Party today being called fascist – then stop supporting a party that is fascist. And we'll end our Thanksgiving Fest with Jack Benny. Which is always a good place to land on. I'm a big fan of Jack Benny, and have been since a kid. Perhaps I got it from my Grandma Rose who loved Benny, and I remember watching his TV show with her when little. Later, when I was at a senior at Northwestern I finally had built up enough contacts to figure out how to get access to their great radio archive -- it was like entering a wonderful, wall-to-wall recordings of old radio programs, and I was able to tape record a bunch of old Benny shows for my collection, which I still have. They're gems. It turns out that my friend and reader of these pages, Eric Boardman -- an all-around talented fellow and Second City alum -- is quite the fan, as well. He sent me the following several months back, about the Jack Benny Show's Thanksgiving special on November 30, 1952 -- "It's no secret, I am obsessed with the Jack Benny radio show. Each night I listen to an episode on my phone as I fall asleep. (Do you conk out with a smile on your kisser?) "Yes, I know Thanksgiving is long over, but this particular program will bring joy to any season. Today's sitcom staffers should study the construction. And everybody else should howl with laughter---and marvel at the gags radio encourages. Benny's writers are constantly surprising us with 'visual" images' And Mr. Benny generously shares the jokes with his crackerjack cast. (Thanks always to the Sportsman Quartet for making cigarette commercials satisfying.) 'The Lucky Strike Program with Jack Benny' is high art, maybe the highest of the genre. "Happy listening!" Our Fest continues ever on... Earlier I mentioned that there were a few song that get sung on Thanksgiving Day -- and also mentioned that The West Wing seemed to go out of its way to do wonderful episodes for the day. So, here's a good way to put the two of those things together. This comes from the very end of an episode -- and yes, it's the "Shibboleth" one again, it was an especially good one ("An Indian in the Lobby" is another great Thanksgiving episode) -- and is one of the more moving moments in the series, and one of the best uses of the song, "We Gather Together." The video is a little fuzzy at the beginning, but it clears up. |
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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