I’m not much of a sports fan, but I grew up about 25 minutes outside Boston, so of course it’s in my blood to root for the Red Sox and loathe the Yankees. Tonight, the rivals meet up for the first time this season. In honor of the event, I share with you this commercial for New Era from last year, part of a series in which New York fan Alec Baldwin and Boston fan John Krasinski taunt and torment each other. They were all funny, but this was by far my favorite.
I also read this morning, courtesy of The Huffington Post, that today marks the 100th anniversary of the first game ever played at Fenway Park. They use the opportunity to offer five Fenway-centric clips from the movies.
I have this really hazy memory of being a little kid – like, pre-school age – and going to Fenway with my dad, who knew somebody that worked there. It was a weekday, pretty quiet, but if my recollection is accurate, we did walk through the clubhouse and see some of the players in uniform. But it meant nothing to me. In fact, the highlight of the visit was that my dad’s friend gave me a Baby Ruth. I’m pretty sure my older brother, who was in school, was furious that he had missed this and that it had been wasted on me when I didn’t even care about the team.
Anyway…Happy Anniversary Fenway, and let’s go Sox!
On my About this Blog page, I touched on the frequency with which I would be posting clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but since actually going live in mid-January, I haven’t posted a single one. I have a backlog of historical clips from both shows that I could easily toss up here every few days just for fun, but once I started to accrue a few subscribers, I felt guilty about filling their Inbox too frequently. We’ll see how that plays out over the long haul, but right now it’s time for a dose of Daily Show. Jon Stewart did a segment last week that I wanted to share…mainly because of one line that caught my attention. Here’s the piece, which covers the Supreme Court’s review of President Obama’s health care law. (For some reason it’s been chopped into two clips.)
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The comment Stewart makes in the second half of the segment that rings so true is this: “Although you do have to wonder how it is that the party that creationists call home is so Darwinian.”
The line comes and goes so fast that it almost gets buried within the bit, so I want to make sure it gets the attention it deserves, because it’s such a brilliant statement: smart, funny and so incisive. Read it again. Take a moment to appreciate the simple construction of a great joke. Like many types of comedy, political comedy – when it works – does so because of the truth behind the gag.
“…the party that creationists call home is so Darwinian.” The hypocrisy Stewart gets at there is of course typical of conservatives and Republicans, who regularly contradict one of the basic principles of their own ideology. All politicians swim in the pool of hypocrisy, but this particular example seems specific to conservatives. It’s the same hypocrisy by which the party that supposedly stands for small government and individual liberty is the party that’s always up in everyone’s face – and every woman’s uterus – about what they can and can’t do in their private lives. The GOP’s own web page states, “The Republican Party, like our nation’s founders, believes that government must be limited so that it never becomes powerful enough to infringe on the rights of individuals.” Yet they’re constantly trying to infringe on individual liberties and regulate people’s personal lives. They’re the ones trying to keep homosexuals out of the military. They’re the ones fighting tooth and nail to ban same-sex marriage. They’re the ones who want to determine how women’s bodies can be treated. They’re the ones who want all Americans, regardless of their faith, to be governed according to the principles of the Christian bible.
So conservatives want a government big and involved enough to make sure that gays and lesbians can’t marry, but not one so big that it takes care of sick people who may not be able to afford health insurance. Good to see they have their priorities straight. Now when it comes to the law, I don’t pretend to understand anything more complex than the State of Alabama vs. William Gambini and Stanley Rothenstein as seen in My Cousin Vinny, so I can’t comment on the legality of the health care regulation. But Justice Scalia’s comment in that clip about not obligating yourself to a system that provides for everyone seems to be how a lot of conservatives and Republicans feel. It just surprises me that the party which would probably claim Jesus as its own is the same party that now equates compassion with socialism.
I guess I’m a fool for still being surprised by such attitudes and contradictions. As always, my thanks to Jon Stewart for easing the pain.
Actually, many pieces of my childhood have died over the years, but I’m referring to the fact that four famous folk who passed away during the last week-and-a-half had a notable presence during my formative years. I feel the need to pay brief tribute.
First, Davy Jones. I watched The Monkees frequently as a child. It’s been too long for me to remember many specifics other than the opening credits, yet just thinking about the show conjures memories of my first 10 years of life. (Or let’s say, years 6-10. I have no memories of years 1-2, and 3-5 are a blur.) Anyway, I’m not sure what the appeal of the show was when I was so young. What was I getting from The Monkees? Or, now that I think about it, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which I adored for some reason? Or The Love Boat? (Actually, I think I know what I was getting from The Love Boat, even at that age). I suppose Davy, Mickey, Peter and Michael were just silly enough for me to appreciate their antics. And they recorded some pretty great pop songs. I even remember Jones guest starring on The Brady Bunch, my favorite show at the time. (Man, watching the end of that clip – and especially this one – I can’t believe now how many hours of my childhood were spent consuming that show. It is not good…) Needless to say, I was sad to hear last week that Jones died, too young at 66. I cycled through the Monkees songs on my iPod in his honor, and listening to “Daydream Believer,” was reminded of the music video, with its candy-colored striped sets and goofy finale where the bandmates all try to hog the spotlight. Sorry to see you go, Mr. Jones.
Second, Jan Berenstain. I almost didn’t notice this one in the days of post-Oscar hoopla, but I would be remiss not to mention the children’s author who co-created The Berenstain Bears, a favorite of mine when I was little. For some reason, I specifically remember poring repeatedly over The Berenstain Bears’ New Baby and The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room. Hadn’t thought about these in years, and reading this obituary in The Hollywood Reporter, I was surprised to learn that Jan was still producing new books in the series.
Next, Ralph McQuarrie, the man who designed Darth Vader, C-3PO and so much more of the Star Wars galaxy. He was one of George Lucas’ first and most essential collaborators on Star Wars. The two met a few years before Lucas really began working on the movie, when it was still just a vague idea in his head. According to J.W. Rinzler’s epic tome The Making of Star Wars, McQuarrie had been doing illustrations for Boeing when he met young filmmakers Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, who were blown away by his work. When they were working on a sci-fi film of their own, they asked him to do some concept art. McQuarrie joined them for lunch one day with their friend Lucas, and the director remembered him when he started to write Star Wars. He hired McQuarrie to help illustrate a handful of early concepts, and the artist wound up creating some of the most iconic imagery in film history. He based his drawings on Lucas’ script pages, but added his own ideas and details which in turn inspired Lucas. McQuarrie worked on many other famous films and TV shows, and won an Oscar as part of the visual effects team for Cocoon, but his contribution to Star Wars is immeasurable. Here’s a nice article about his passing, from Entertainment Weekly.
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Finally, Robert Sherman. Though I undoubtedly heard the name over the years, it wasn’t familiar to me on its own. The headline about his death that I initially read touted him as the songwriter of “It’s a Small World,” but it was seeing he was the man behind the music from Mary Poppins that really got my attention. In reading further, I realized that Sherman and his brother were responsible for tons of great Disney music, including songs from The Jungle Book. I remember the first time I saw Mary Poppins. Couldn’t have been more than five years old (making this one of the few memories from 3-5 that’s not a blur…if my recollection is even correct). It was Thanksgiving, and the movie was playing on TV that evening. My mother told me that I’d really like it, and after dinner she brought me up to the bedroom with the TV, tucked me in and left me to watch while the grown-ups played cards or something and my older brother and cousins did who knows what. And of course, I loved it. What little kid wouldn’t? Flying nannies, chalk paintings you could jump into, rooms that clean themselves (almost), real people walking through a cartoon, and that magical word: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I recall my aunt buying me the record album, which had pictures instead of just black vinyl: Mary Poppins and Bert in their “Jolly Holiday” outfits on one side, Bert and the chimney sweeps doing their rooftop dance on the other side. Mary Poppins also taught me an early lesson in the difference between fantasy and reality. My medicine was never delivered with a spoonful of sugar, nor did singing that song help me clean my room. Mary Poppins was a liar…but how could I begrudge one with so sweet a voice?
Lady and gentlemen, I bid you all a fond and grateful adieu.
As we all know by now, the much hyped Iowa Republican caucus took place on Tuesday night, marking yet another milestone in the already tediously drawn out race for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination. Just the thought of having to endure another ten months of campaigning, pandering, toothless debates and vapid analysis before Election Day is enough to make the bliss of a frontal lobotomy worth considering. But as that would have the unfortunate side effect of preventing me from seeing Season 2 of Game of Thrones, it’s not a viable option. Instead, I look to Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher to ease my suffering.
Stewart earned his keep with last night’s coverage. He seemed possessed of an energy that he could barely contain, and if Emmys were awarded to the writing of individual segments, The Daily Show scribes would surely be in the running for this piece, which flaunted plenty of laughs as well as some impressive wordplay.
It’s really one continuous segment, but for some reason it’s been split in two:
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I assume that at some point later in his speech, Santorum clarified that the freedom he was speaking of doesn’t apply to gays and lesbians. Well, we’ll let him have his rare moment in the sun. He won’t be riding this wave too far. In fact, I’m not sure that when all is said and done this will be classifiable as a wave; it’s more like a splash in a bathtub.
If you just can’t get enough of Iowa caucus comedy, The Colbert Report‘s coverage was pretty great too. (Romney really is a robot, isn’t he? Sorry…that’s actually a disservice to how far robots have come.) Too bad Bill Maher’s season doesn’t begin until next week. I’m sure he too would have some choice comments.
The video clip below may be familiar to you already, having been making the rounds online over the last few days. It features Elizabeth Warren, currently running for U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, talking to a group of supporters about one of the Republicans’ favorite bullshit buzzwords (or in this case, buzz-phrase): class warfare. Whenever President Obama or anyone else talks about higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans, the Republicans start throwing a hissyfit and claim that such a policy is harmful to (and here’s an even more popular Republican bullshit buzz-phrase) job creators. Yes, the wealthiest Americans are job creators. And what success they’ve had over the last few years, creating all those jobs that have kept America’s unemployment rate so high. Let’s just watch the video, before I stray too far…
Until this clip appeared on the web, I had no idea Warren was running for Congress. She is seeking Ted Kennedy’s former seat, currently held by Republican Scott Brown, who was elected after Kennedy’s death in 2009.
I’m familiar with Warren from her TV appearances on The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Charlie Rose and from Michael Moore’s film, Capitalism: A Love Story. I’ve always enjoyed seeing her interviewed, not just because she’s a champion for common sense and consumer rights, but because she often comes off as just a bit daffy. Actually, I think it’s bemusement; she comes off as bemused that the steps to reforming our broken financial system are met with such stubborn resistance. She’s been in the thick of those reform efforts since 2008, when she was appointed to chair the Congressional Oversight Committee to monitor the distribution of the bank bailout money through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). In September 2010, she was appointed by Obama to help implement the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created a few months earlier when he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. (For what it’s worth, Republicans in Congress were trying to strip the new bureau of its power before it was even up and running. Because apparently protecting consumers is a bad thing.)
I’m both pleased and distressed that she’s running for office. On one hand, we need more people like Warren in politics to help enact thoughtful legislation that will benefit all Americans, not just the ones in the highest income brackets. But of course, this sentiment assumes that our government actually works and that politicians can accomplish anything meaningful. I don’t have a lot of faith in that possibility anymore, and I wonder if Warren couldn’t do more good outside of public office. I don’t come across too many members of Congress that aren’t, at best, posturing fools. And it seems that even when there is someone to put our faith in – someone who seems to have integrity and who vocally stands up for what’s right – they end up letting us down. I’m looking at you, Anthony Weiner.
I don’t see Elizabeth Warren getting caught up in any sex scandals, but I worry that her decency and pragmatism will be swallowed up by our ineffectual political system. Still, I suppose it’s a good thing to try to get more people like Warren into Congress if there’s ever going to be a chance of improving things.
Let’s hope the people of my original home state will do the right thing come November. And if they don’t, at least we know that Warren will continue to be a voice of reason and a champion of the middle class, wherever she is.
This is an April 2009 appearance Warren made on The Daily Show that has stuck out in my mind, partly for the clear explanation she offers (in the second clip) on how deregulation of the banking industry led to our national financial meltdown.
I Am DB 