Modern Family

Alright so this is a bit of fluff and I'm a little late to the table, but I’ve noticed over the years that with the more choices on television these days I seem to watch less and less of what’s being shown. Sure there’s the stuff on HBO like True Blood and that Mormon show that I can’t remember the name of right now that I watch and then there’s Boardwalk Empire that I’m trying to warm up to, but other than those there is nothing else that I actually watch. On the networks I’ve seen maybe 20 minutes here and there of Glee and the CSI shows and fallen asleep in front of something else, that is until a few weeks ago when I found on Hulu one of the funniest shows on TV, Modern Family.

Apparently the guy who played the father from Married With Children is married to a much younger woman with a son of her own from somewhere in South America. Al, I call him Al because that was his name in the old show, has two children of his own. His daughter, a well meaning controlling shrew of a woman is married to some sort of wuss who seems to live in his own ill conceived version of "coolness" and fatherly masculinity. They have 3 children of their own, but they’re just there to move the story along.

Al also has a son who is married to another man and they have an adopted Asian girl. Of course if you’re white and gay in America the only children that you will be allowed to adopt will be a minority or a better yet a foreign minority. Let the hilarity begin. And yet in point of fact, it really does.

With this combination of characters of different people with different ages and different outlooks on life and script outlines written by the numbers you would think that the show would have been cancelled before the end of the second commercial. Except of course it wasn’t. What was presented has been show that has been well written, well paced, and reasonably well acted. The scenes are sharp, inventive and thoughtful. They make you satisfied without dumbing down to all the usual sensibilities which many shows do. Everything in this sitcom flows easily for less than thirty minutes making it seem like you just sat down in front of the TV. Well it would seem like I just sat down in front of the TV if I hadn't watched all the shows that I've seen on my laptop.

But all in all, this show is a keeper.

They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky...

All I wanted to do was 2 things, put up the picture of Jared Lee Loughner's mugshot, the guy from the Arizona shootings, and say that if anyone had seen this guy walking down the street at night looking the way that he looked here, they would have been justified in shooting him on sight. No court in the land would convict the shooter because if this doesn't look like crazy and dangerous, then I don't know what does.

The other thing was ask why do famous killers in the U.S. all go by 3 names like Mark David Chapman, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wayne Gacy, or John Wilkes Booth? I don't get that. In fact I believe that if someone should come up to you and say, "Hey, I'm John Jay Smith," that should give you the right to swing a bat or a two-by-four right across the left temple and save yourself and society.

Instead what I'm going to do is steal an idea from a blog written by Tom Freeland, a lawyer in Mississippi and say yes, Loughner does look like Uncle Festor, but without the charm.

I wonder if Lawyer Freeman in Mississippi can sue someone in New Jersey for stealing his stuff.

I wonder if this post too soon.

Yes, a New Year's Resolution

I have always hated making New Year’s Resolutions. Resolutions become failed resolutions and failed resolutions become another excuse for becoming disappointed with myself. So of course I have sworn never to make a New Years’ Resolution again, which means of course it’s time. Life is crazy isn’t it?

One day you’re making $1.50 above minimum wage cleaning somebody’s office, the next day you’ve become the focus of world attention when someone else decides to fly a plane into the building where you work. One day you are considered as scum of the earth and not fit to be in decent society for the rest of your life, the next day the government decides that the costs of incarceration and medical care are a bit much and that perhaps time served and probation might not be such a bad idea after all. I guess all I’m trying to say is that nothing is permanent nothing is written in stone. In fact the only really prominent thing that was ever written in stone was the Ten Commandments and even that was destroyed in a fit of rage by some crazy old Jew, or should I say Israelite?

Last year I didn’t allow myself to really go out in public, I was feeling a little Rubenesque shall we say. It wasn’t that I was covered in rolls of fat, or at least none that I will openly admit to. But there was, there is, a way that my body moves that makes me feel uncomfortable. The rhythm is off. I plod rather than stride. I grasp rather than stretch. My center of balance no longer makes me feel balanced and I am put off by it. It makes me feel old.

A few years ago I remember seeing Danté, a massage therapist on the beach at Fire Island. He was naked and moving about and stretching himself into all sorts of poses like a gazelle in heat, that is if a gazelle in heat is an elegant sight because Danté certainly was. This year I want to do that. I am going to take up yoga and I’m going to learn to stretch and breathe and move in a way that will keep me safe.

I say safe because after 7 or maybe 10 years of being accident free, the week before Christmas I’m walking a block away from my house crossing the street when I feel that old familiar feeling of my legs giving way from under me. But instead of finding my balance and adjusting myself quickly, I suddenly saw both my ankles at level with my head as I left the ground and waited for that inevitable thud to my lower back as my backside hit the street. I can still feel the sweat of embarrassment that I felt as I hoped no one that I knew had seen me and scurried away knowing that if I was better shape I might have been able to have avoided the mishap.

So there it is, it may be a little late so sue me. My first resolution in years is to take up yoga and if you should see me on the beach stretching like a mutha and you enjoy it, then feel free to come over and tap me on the ass and say, “Good job.” I know it will make me happy.

No Obituaries Needed

I wonder why we only remember certain people when they’re dead. I wonder why we can’t honor them when their career has waned a little and nothing is going on with them but they are still here for us to tell them that we appreciated what they did for us.

By now everybody has heard that Teena Marie is dead. Of course I was saddened that she should die so young with so much left to contribute to the music world and I should say something about how she had an affect over my adolescence but to be honest I was never really a fan of hers. Yes she did "Behind the Groove" which would blow your mind and make you go without underwear so you could shake money maker on the dance floor, but it wasn’t the singing that I liked. It was the bass and the beat and the arrangements that moved me. It was more Rick James than Lady T, more Funk than R&B. But that was still no excuse for me to wait until she died just to say,”Hey.”

Today Gerry Rafferty also died. I sort of wish that I had bought his music and supported his efforts and said that he meant something to me, but I had never heard of him or his group The Stealers. They played "Stuck in the Middle with You," as the background music for one of the sickest and best movie scenes ever shot until today and for that I will always be grateful. If you have the time take click on this link and you’ll see what I mean and maybe we'll say so long and farewell together.

A few months ago I was in a friend’s car and he was playing a copy of Lionel Richie’s latest album. I laughed telling him that Ritchie was so yesterday and out of date and he told me that Lionel Ritchie may not have been as relevant as he used to be but he still was a phenomenal talent that should be recognized and respected. He was right of course.

I remember when the singer was at the top of his game when he was in The Commodores and after. He was king of the world and dancing on the ceiling and proving to everyone. He was doing R&B and Country, writing songs not just for himself but Kenny Rogers and other artists and was breaking all sorts of records and winning all sorts of awards…Well he would have been except for that small detail of Michael Jackson and his “Thriller” album kicking everyone to the curb and leaving nothing but dust and crumbs behind.

But Lionel Ritchie still wrote and still performed and still produced, and even though I may have been a little too young and inexperienced to realize what he was writing about at the time I do now. And even though I will probably still not buy his new music or pay to see him perform, I recognize him as a significant part of my life and salute him before the obits are needed by just saying, ”Hey,” and, "Good job."

...the other side.

I am one of those people who will sit on a fence through hell or high water until I have fallen on one side or the other, and then it will take an Act of Congress or overthrow of the government for me to change my mind and go to the other side.

One of those things that I firmly believe in is that the start of the new millennium, the new century, the new decade started in 2001 and not 2000 which is what most people believe and so the next new decade starts in 2011.

Who cares you say? I don't know. I certainly don't. But all of this is just to finish off this season and say.....Happy New Year!!!! and I'll see you on the other side.

Merry Christmas Bed Intruder

Since it's Christmas I was going to talk about everyone being merry and jolly and everything while people in the Côte d'Ivoire were dying in the streets because of election results and that there were wars going on and poverty and disease was  still rampant elsewhere in the world. Then I was going to compare it to the original Christmas Story where people will often speak about peace coming to world because of the birth of the Christ Child while forgetting to mention the accompanying Massacre of the Innocents, the mass slaughter of first born children ordered by King Herod. The good and the bad. The yin and the yang.

After that I was going to wrap it up by saying something about, "good times," a line from a book rather than the TV show. And by the book I mean Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities where he starts off with, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," and then go on from there. It might have turned out nicely, but I think it would have been too much work to do well, or well enough before Christmas. So I'm just going to show a bunch of video pieces.

I don't know if Joan Rivers is still doing that show where she goes into the houses of rich people who got there because of some idea they had, but I remember part of a show where she went to the home of the man who invented the Snuggie or the Slanket or something. Well actually I don't remember the house or even really the show, but I do remember thinking to myself was how does someone selling a cheap polyester blanket with sleeves cut or sewn into it become a millionaire? And how does someone get silly white girls to flash there boobs in front of a home video camera and make a mint out of it, and why don't I have the ability to make money out of nothing?

Well apparently this ability seems to be happening to everyone except me.....Roll the tape please because its starts here and now....



And that becomes this.



Which moves onto....

Too Much Stress

It's time for the annual gripe and even though I’ve been doing it since I was eleven, I don’t really like flying. There is too much stress involved.

I had just arrived in Nashville TN an hour late doing that airport hopping thing that people do when they’re trying to get from one city to another but have to change planes at behind “God’s Back” county 30 miles east of nowhere. The airport at Nashville seemed to fit the bill. It looked dark and dingy and dismal and I thought, “If I’ve missed the last connecting flight to Philly, there’s no fucking way I’m staying overnight in this place.” I swear a lot when I’m talking to myself; somehow it seems more poetic and insightful. Call me crazy.

While I was leaving the plane from Florida, trying to figure out which gate I should go to and where the flight information board was, I noticed that I was a behind a man in a wheelchair who was tipping the person who had helped him off the plane that I had just left. In fact there was a whole bunch of people sitting there in their wheelchairs waiting for another flight or for someone to take them somewhere and I realized why the flight attendant on the plane had asked passengers in wheelchairs to be patient since there was only one person who would be able to help them disembark.

I passed the group, carry-on luggage in hand and I was hit by the stench of what can only described as the smell of raw sewage and baby shit. “Oh God, this must be some sort of decrepit persons wheelchair convention,” and then I wondered how long it would be before I joined them. But I heard over the loud speakers, “Last call for flight blah, blah, blah to Philadelphia at Gate 25 please come immediately to the gate.” “Freedom!” I thought and made a quick dash to the right only to stop and do a u-turn after 20 yards when I realized I was heading in the wrong direction.

Anyway after arriving at gate 25 panting and wheezing feeling the sweat start to trickle down my back, I really do need to quit smoking, they took my boarding pass and closed the door of the airplane 20 seconds after I had boarded. Last on board as usual. This seems to be becoming a habit.

I don’t think I really like flying, there’s just too much stress involved.

Who is Brenda Vaccaro

Normally I don’t even care about award shows. They are all about people or things that I know nothing about and don’t want to know, or if I do, will forget about before the end of the next commercial. In fact because I love movies, the only show that I will watch is the Oscars but that’s only during the commercials of whatever else is on another channel. I used to say that the only thing that would make television worse would be to add another stupid award show, that was until someone discovered the reality show and TV and my life took a turn for the worse.

Anyway, for some reason I was going down the list of award nominations for the 2011 Golden Globes and under the category for Best Supporting actress in a TV movie there was a bunch of people listed but no Brenda Vaccaro. Brenda Vaccaro? Who’s Brenda Vaccaro you ask? Well let me tell you about Brenda Vaccaro. By the way, have I mentioned the name Brenda Vaccaro yet?



I first came across Brenda Vaccaro in Airport ’75 or maybe it was ’77, it was a while ago, and then again in the Jacqueline Susann film Once is Not Enough which she had done before the Airport movie. I had heard that she was once the older lady in Michael Douglas’s life when he was young enough to have an older lady. But Since then, nothing, Nothing that is until I saw her earlier this year, big as a Buick and just as ugly, in the Dr Death, Jack Kevorkian bio-pic You Don’t Know Jack.

In the movie she plays the role of Jack’s vibrant and yet caring sister that goes tits to forehead with Al Pacino with conviction and believability. She steals scenes when she has to and subjugates herself when she needs to, which was most of the time because she was dealing with Al and let’s face it no one can really go up against Al Pacino. She isn’t the star but she helps the movie move along when the movie needs to move along. She made my experience good and that was worth a mention I should think.

So it looks like…don’t you just hate it when people start off a sentence with the word so. I was watching CNN the other day and the guest started every thought with the word “so.” After a while it became so annoying and I realized that I had noticed it before with other people on TV or on the radio and that it must have become a trend or something. Either way I hate it. It’s now one of my pet peeves like people riding bicycles on the sidewalks only to risk life and limb to young pedestrians and old people as they go about business. But I’m going off on a tangent now and ranting. As I was saying...

So it looks like there will be no need for me to watch the Golden Globes next year and I wish I can say that they will miss me, but since I’ve never watched them before, my guess is that they won’t.

Palin Power: Bristol Earns Personal Best on DWTS

Just a quick blurb. If no talent Bristol Palin wins Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday, I have $100 that's saying that no brains mother Sarah is winning the presidency in 2012. I'm just saying.

Say it ain't so Joe

I wish I could embed the video that I want here, but Oprah didn’t become a billionaire by giving stuff away for nothing. So you will have to follow the link or watch the fuzzy bootleg Youtube version below and go to the 6 minute mark to know exactly what I’m trying to say. Although I’m sure that there are a lot of people who will have already seen it and come to their own conclusions.

Sometime last week I was watching a repeat broadcast of the Oprah Winfrey Show, the one that had Michael Jackson’s children in it. Funny how that still makes me chuckle inside thinking about the blood lines must work in the Jackson family. But I was watching the show, I suspect the same way most men watch Oprah with half a mind focused on something diametrically opposed to whatever she is harping on about, when I thought I heard old Papa Joe Jackson say that he had beaten his children and how proud he was of it. He thought that he had done a good job because other people’s children who hadn’t experienced his form of discipline had ended up in jail, or on drugs, or even dead.

Since it was just me and the TV in the room the only thing I could do was ask myself, “…er did he forget Michael?”