Dear Vice President Gore, et al.

I’m concerned. More than concerned, in fact: deeply troubled.

How can I say this, diplomatically? Hmmm.

Your new news  shows look like crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 And by “look” I mean the physical plant that serves as a backdrop for your hosts.

They are an embarrassment, and, much as I’d like to be a fly on the wall for the sessions in which your “look” was rationalized, whoever made the decision was an idiot, no matter what high-falutin’ Manhattan “black canvas” artsy rationalizations were woven from threads of purest coruscating B.S. 

I want to pick up on a thread from yesterday’s conclusion to the “Selling the New Nixon” series: staging matters. Command of your elements matters. How you dress MATTERS. In show business, in politics and yes, even on TV news and opinion shows.

What I’m trying to say is that your presentation looks about as awful as that old cable access (do they still have cable access?) crank who duct-taped the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag behind his coffee table every week as his set on every cable system in the USA. (It was different guys, of course, but eerily the same awful presentation).

Live! Hello from Al Gore’s garage …

There is a DIFFERENCE between cable news and cable access, and, at this moment, Current TV has this dreadful look of a former governor of Michigan (I watched the debut, last night, of THE WAR ROOM with Jennifer Granholm), a former vice president of the United States, and two former MSNBC hosts broadcasting from an abandoned fallout shelter somewhere in the tri-state region.

Seriously?

Much as I would like to take vorpal pen in hand and do some serious snicker-snacking, let me offer some constructive criticism, instead. The rant portion is more or less concluded and you can unstop the eyes of children and impressionable persons, now.

I lived and worked in Hollywood for fifteen years, and I know a little something about media and presentation. Here’s a tale to establish my bona fides and get us into the meat of the matter:

Once, when I was a film critic, I attended a screening at MGM down in Culver City (after they tore the back lot apart and sold off all their memorabilia). And, I don’t recall the film, which was fairly forgettable, but I recall the smallish screening room, which, like all the old screening rooms, had plush seats and ASHTRAYS on the back of the seats, and you could actually often SMOKE in them, even though smoking was illegal in all movie theaters in town (L.A.M.C. Pi R Squared).

Anyway, sitting a few rows away in an uncrowded, small, screening room, was Leonard Maltin, from Entertainment Tonight at the time, and innumerable TV Movie guides, a fancy art book on Walt Disney (I have a copy in the other room and am too lazy to get up and check), etcetera.

A slight, trim fellow, with a ghostly but not ghastly beard, owlish glasses and a pleasant face on a slim frame, as we’ve all seen on television, at one time or another.

The movie ended. As the lights came up, he was easy to spot in his satin Mickey Mouse jacket — probably a freebie from a grateful studio, and definitely a cool bit of apparel — if I might break with heterosexual male convention for a moment and actually acknowledge another man’s clothing.

And then Leonard stood up.

From the waist up, slim, trim fellow with shoulders as narrow as his smile was broad.

From the waist down: The U.S.S. Missouri.

The line from the musical came to mind: “She’s got a pair of hips/just like two battleships.”

But, though he’s been on camera for years, you never see that. He actually looked like one of the leftovers of the zodiac: two disparate creatures welded together at the waist: half a horse/half a man, or half a goat/half a fish.

Here, he was half a slight, bespectacled film critic, half Moby Dick.

BUT YOU NEVER SEE THAT.

That’s called the magic of television, and I will counterpoint that with the brick walls of the “Young Turks” and the “War Room” sets.

Much of the evening consisted of the host talking
to inanimate television sets scattered throughout
the National Guard Armory basement  it was shot in 

DO NOT SHOW ME BRICK WALLS that make it look like you’re a bunch of amateurs broadcasting from an abandoned tenement lobby.

This violates the first tenet of motion pictures — which TV news finally picked up from what has been classical animation technique from before the clown jumped out of the inkwell: background movement. A motion picture is just that: it MOVES.

Just having a drunk lurching around with a hand-held camera DOES not make that dead brick move. Nor does a brick wall communicate OTHER than poverty; it may be charming at a coffee shop in Soho, but on video it’s death. It’s every bit as intrusive and not nearly as pleasant as Naked News, where strippers read the news and take off their clothes.

Looks kind of like somebody broadcasting from a garage

At least with that, you watch. Seeing someone in blue jeans, set against a backdrop of a brick wall with a bunch of old political posters prancing between large-screen flat TVs isn’t cutting edge. It looks more like a burglary in progress at BEST BUY.

Keith Olbermann’s set has vanished entirely (rumors of consistent technical errors and malfunctions), but I can’t say that I care for the “Charlie Rose on PBS” black void. It’s far superior to the brickwork derelicts that serve as the other sets, but Keith is a professional, and he pulls it off with aplomb. But, again, losing the tie is a mistake.

(Why? I’ll tell you at the very end. Most of this criticism is aimed at The Young Turks and Granholm’s show.)

Let’s go back to Hollywood: Yesterday, I told you the story of Ronald Reagan and how to hold a phone for the camera. No matter how “authentic” it might look to the method actor to cover half their face by holding the phone as one would ACTUALLY hold the phone, it serves no purpose and is, in fact, counter-productive. The audience already knows what a telephone looks like. They didn’t pay for that. They paid to see Marilyn’s face.

And, in TV news — as in Leonard Maltin’s example — we don’t need to see you from the waist down.

Look: I’m not suggesting that you go the way of Faux Nooz­™ by adopting the video equivalent of the old college debate dictum: if you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance, baffle ‘em with bullshit.

We don’t actually multitask — we just weave endless fugues, combining processes, as when someone knits, watches TV and carries on a conversation about what the lady up the block said — and all that frippery fragments consciousness, rather than focusing it.  But a dead wall is dead space, and that draws my eye FROM the broadcast and gets in the way of my watching it.

Less  CBS News than “Fernwood 2Nite“

TV news looks the same all over the world for a REASON: it imputes authority and gravitas to what is, inevitably, a narrator reading from either a paper script or a teleprompter and looking into the camera.

It’s not meant to be an exciting medium, but it is meant to be a communications medium. Wearing a TIE communicates an underlying ethos and gravitas; wearing a suit, sitting at a desk lend a specific trained credibility to the host.

You see, the FORM of communication is a communication, too. I learned that in typesetting (which I did between writing gigs, and paid a lot better than being a Kelly Girl® temporary typist).

You can set a serious message in a certain typeface and completely destroy the meaning of the message just by the type design. Here’s a sentence:

You never did “The Kenosha Kid.”

And here’s that sentence in three different typefaces (you’re reading this in Georgia, most likely):

What you see here are the three standard typefaces that you see in virtually all commercial printing:

• Fritz Quadrata Bold (usually called “Albertus Bold” on PCs) is popular for commercial logos, and you can see it in the KFC and Safeway logos just about anywhere. You’ll be surprised at how many places you’ll find it if you look.
• Souvenir is the standard typeface for ad and magazine copy and is utterly ubiquitous. ‘Nuff said.
• Helvetica (usually called “Swiss” or “Ariel”) is used in place of Souvenir, and is very popular in instruction manuals and technical documents.

If you have those three typefaces, you’ve pretty much got a typesetting shop. Very little “fancy” type ever gets used outside of those three, with their bold and italic corollaries.

But EACH one communicates a subtly DIFFERENT message. Each sentence is slightly different. Or consider this:

Now, instead of looking at the sentences, all you see are the different sorts of type, each repeating the same sentence, but in a subtly different way. Or, to make it even more explicit:

Right now, the video “typeface” that Current TV is using is the bottom typeface, which gives the impression of a ransom note or a mad bomber, just as the “news” sets gives the impression of somebody who’s snuck into the basement of the local high school.

Somebody in business attire behind a desk, with a green screen background is the Fritz Quadrata of news around the world. And that format and formula weren’t derived by accident. They are used because, after trial and error, they WORK.

And please don’t let me see the cables and wires. This is a no-no from time immemorial. They don’t make you look “cutting edge” they make you look like a bunch of amateurs. And, trust me, conveying the metamessage of “cheap,” “dirty,” and “amateurish,” is NOT the way to present news. The digerati of Manhattan may think it’s kewl, but it is a monumental turnoff AND distraction.

The point is communication, so why undercut your message with an underlying silent communication that you either don’t know what you’re doing, or else you just don’t give a crap. Neither mitigates towards credibility.

And if credibility weren’t an issue, why hire Keith Olbermann? Why hire Jennifer Granholm? Why have Al Gore on primary night analysis?

Serious news show or garage band?

If you want to play news, wear a suit and tie, and if you’re in jeans, fine, but do it behind a desk. Contrary to popular delusion, you don’t need to have a news staff prancing about aerobically to deliver credible, reliable, important news. Consider Leonard Maltin.

All you need, actually, is two faces of a desk (front and top), and a green screen wall behind the desk. I’ve GOT a can of green screen paint from my last video shoot, and you’re welcome to it, if you want it. Bought at the movie supply house on La Brea across the street from the old KCOP 13 studios, it’s industry standard and goes on with a standard roller and brush.  You can slap it on anything you’d like for a flat surface.

JUST that much would improve your programs about 300% and, at a bare minimum, wouldn’t DETRACT from what you’re messaging in the news.

If you can’t afford sets, take the old Hippocratic Oath to heart: First, do no harm.

The story is told that Jimi Hendrix gave two concerts at one of the Fillmores (I forget which) on New Year’s Eve, and, after the first concert, with all the jumping and behind-the-back and playing with his teeth tricks, Bill Graham supposedly said “It sounded like crap, man! You don’t need all the circus tricks. Just play the music.”

And Jimi did the second set stock still, creating a legendary performance. Reportedly, no one in the audience registered offense or walked out because the musician wasn’t jumping around on stage like a cocker spaniel on Meth.

I would commend that approach to you, Current TV. Forget the circus tricks, the phony embrace of the everyman squalor and poverty of what looks like you’re broadcasting from inside the local National Guard armory.

Did they forget to pay their electric bill?

OK. I know this is a bit painful and perhaps kind of embarrassing, but dammit, it’s IMPORTANT that an alternative progressive cable channel succeed. For all the rightie howling about MSNBC, it’s still under the thumb of NBC news, and infiltrated through and through with Joe Scarboroughs and Michael Steeles (and other, impossible rare conservative Black Republicans, who seem to gravitate to MSNBC and CNN like unicorns to a magic spring) and, until he fell off the Kooky Klannish Kliff, Pat Buchanan.

The corporate media are almost COMPLETELY bought, and Comcast, who now controls all NBC and MSNBC content, is run by Brian L. Williams, whose political affiliations are murky. Comcast’s new head of NBC/Universal, however, is a Republican Über-contributor named Steve Burke.

So you HAVE to succeed, Current. Now, buck up, and take a little constructive criticism from someone who doesn’t want to watch you shoot yourself in the foot and then hop up and down squealing while the Sadists of the Reicht howl with guttural grunts and clicks of glee.

If you’re going to show TV screens, just HIDE the damned TVs. This is a perfect metaphor for what’s wrong.

1939 black and white TV

For seventy years or thereabouts, the Cathode Ray Tube television was the standard and only TV available, and became available everywhere.

Same thing seventy years later

But, aside from some weird nerds who built their own HeathKit® color TVs from a kit, nobody actually ever SAW a cathode-ray television.

This is a CRT TV:

Naked Lunch: this is what a TV actually is

We “know” it’s true. Somewhere, we actually saw that “real” TV, but we have always preferred the snazzy package with the magical screen floating in the middle. The REALITY of the CRT TV is ugly and disturbing. So we give it a pleasant or even a non-descript, nothing “set” in which to watch the magic, flicking of the 60 scan per second electron gun zapping rare earths.

Right now, you’re broadcasting shows that are that Naked Lunch cathode ray tube and electronic assembly bolted to a metal (or plastic) chassis.

Do what everybody has done from day one and let that magic screen float in a pleasant box. Hell, you might recall that for “The Situation Room” the big star is the giant modular TV screen. But it’s still an ugly assemblage of wires under that package. Hide them wires!

The star of the CNN program, and Wolf Blitzer

Now, one last little story and then I’ll let you get back to your garage for the next show.

Napoleon said that he’d learned more about statecraft from Talma, the famed French actor than from his contemporary Talleyrand, the famed French statesman and survivor.

Because, he said, he’d understood from Talma — a personal friend — that you have to ACT THE ROLE required of you. When Bonaparte was engaged with the Legislature, he DRESSED as a legislator. When engaged in war, he dressed as a general, and never confused the two. The clothing, believed Napoleon, was essential to playing the role properly. Any actor will tell you the same.

Or, as Ivan Markoda used to teach his acting students at the VANMAR Academy in Hollywood: If you go through the motions of anger, your body will find the emotion, without a bunch of fancy Stanislavsky of Boleslavsky emotional memory crap. Act out the physical manifestation of anger, and the anger will be there in the scene.

If you’re going to play newsman and newswoman, ACT like newsmen and newswomen.

And, if you’re going to play newsman and newswoman, DRESS like newsmen and newswomen.

You might recall the movie “Patton” when George C. Scott’s character arrives to take command of a US Army in North Africa that’s just suffered its first disaster of World War II at Kasserine Pass.

He immediately issues orders that the men are to be in regulation uniforms, shoes shined, ties on, or else:

Gentlemen, from this moment, any soldier without leggings, without a helmet, without a tie, any man with unshined shoes or a soiled uniform… is going to be skinned.

He imposes what might seem a martinet’s version of arbitrary discipline, but there is a deadly serious reason for it, as he explains:

You want to know why this outfit got the hell kicked out of it? A blind man could spot it. They don’t act like soldiers; they don’t look like soldiers; why should they be expected to fight like soldiers?

That is advice to take to heart, Current TV.

Act like credible newspersons and LOOK like credible newspersons, and everyone will expect that you ARE newspersons.

Capisce?

Hey, I love what you’re doing. Just get the Bohemian Rococo out of the picture and run some mildly animated backdrops on the green screen behind the desk. Less setting, more sentience, please.

Florida primary “War Room” — or is it Radio Free Piscataway?

Movies is magic, friends, and if you don’t make that magic your friend, it will surely be your enemy.

Which is, alas, where it currently stands.

Cordially, yer pal,

Hart Wms.

Courage.

===============

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Via MSNBC:

Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina Republican primary, capping off a remarkable comeback for his presidential bid that reshapes the trajectory of the battle for the GOP nomination…

[...] The results mark the end of a tumultuous week in politics that saw Gingrich erase and then overcome the lead Romney had in the Palmetto State following his victory in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary. Gingrich came on strong in the closing days of the campaign, looking to rally under his banner the many conservatives unwilling to get behind Romney, who had sought to posture himself as the eventual nominee.

Mitt Romney indeed thought he had it in the bag… He didn’t. Newt Gingrich’s win in S.C. changes the game quite a bit for the GOP race for the presidential nomination. Stay tuned…

Rick Perry will be dropping out of the GOP race for the presidential nomination today, and sources say he “will make the announcement before the CNN debate in South Carolina” tonight.

South Carolina’s primary is to be held on Saturday. Sources have told Politico that Perry is “expected to endorse Newt Gingrich,” and ”Gingrich and Perry had a secret meeting to discuss a possible endorsement.”

Politico notes that Perry’s endorsement “gives the surging Gingrich a huge boost heading into the final debate tonight, and the South Carolina primary on Saturday, in which he’s already closing in on Mitt Romney.”

But wait… Last night Drudge broke the news that ABC News has an exclusive interview with Newt’s ex-wife Marianne Gingrich and “her explosive revelations are set to rock the trail.” The Gingrich campaign is now in full on damage control mode, before ABC airs the interview on Nightline tonight.

Perry’s endorsement could mean diddly to conservative Newt Gingrich at this point, despite Newt’s rise in the South Carolina polls.

Stay tuned…

Video of the Day… via Politico:

“If the far right thought that Romney could win, they might be more enthusiastic about him,” Pelosi told POLITICO’s Mike Allen during Tuesday’s Playbook Breakfast. “But they question what he stands for and they don’t think he’s going to win. So what’s the sell? I’m not sure he knows what he stands for, and that makes it harder too.”

I have to say, I agree 100% with Nancy Pelosi… Romney can’t win and the GOP knows it!

by WALTER BRASCH

One of the fun things sports writers do is try to predict the winners and scores of upcoming games, from high school through the pros. For special “look-at-us-we’re important” bonus points, they create lists of “Top” teams and rank them, both pre-season and weekly.

Sports writers have some kind of genetic mutation that leads them to believe they know more about sports than the average schlump who spends almost $200 a year for a newspaper subscription and as much as $500 a year for all-access all-games everywhere cable coverage. However, the reality is that even the best prognosticators—sports writers love big words when they can pronounce them—have a record about as accurate as the horoscope on the comics page.

Nevertheless, the guesses and rankings by sportswriters are usually innocuous. Readers and viewers usually forget in a couple of days who says what, and go about their own lives trying to make a mediocre paycheck stretch until the end of the month.

Joining the “guess how bright I am” journalists are some reporters who cover national political races. Instead of researching and explaining candidate positions on numerous issues, and giving readers and viewers a greater understanding of how those positions could impact their own lives, these pompous scribblers have made politics another sports contest.

The national news media, secure in their perches in New York and Washington, D.C., several months ago began chirping about who will win the Iowa caucus. For the final few days, they parachuted into Iowa to let their readers and viewers think they were toughened field reporters with as difficult a job as combat correspondents in Iraq or Afghanistan. Like hungry puppies, they stayed close to the candidates, hoping for a morsel or two, digested it, passed it out of their system as wisdom, and haughtily predicted the winner would be Mitt Romney—no, wait—it’s Michele Bachman—no, we’re calling for a surprising victory by Herman Cain—stop-the-presses, Cain petered out—Newt Gingrich is definitely going to take Iowa—Rick Perry is our prediction— we predict Ron Paul might be ahead—the race is going to be tough, but based upon our superior knowledge because we’re the national news media and we’re infallible, and from projections we picked out of our butts we believe—.

The one candidate they discounted for almost all but the last week of the Iowa primary race was Rick Santorum. Not a chance, they declared. Weak campaign. Lack of funds. No charismatic razzle-dazzle. No vital signs. Dead as a 2-by-4 about to be sawed and covered by wallboard.

Santorum, of course, came within eight votes of taking the Iowa caucus. The news media then spent the next day telling us all about that campaign, much in the same way that a bubbly TV weather girl, who a week earlier predicted bright sunny skies for a week, tells us we had snow the past three days.

The national news media jetted out of Iowa faster than a gigolo leaving a plain rich girl for a plain richer one, and descended upon New Hampshire. In the granite state, they have been repeating their performance from Iowa. They have predicted who the “real” winners and losers are. They have tried to convince us they can actually talk to us common folk, so they are grabbing whoever they find to answer in less than ten seconds, “Who do you think will win?” After the New Hampshire primary concludes, Tuesday, the media will happily discard their snow coats for windbreakers and descend into South Carolina, where they will continue to treat a presidential race as little more than a sporting contest.

There’s a difference, however. Generally, whoever wins or loses a game doesn’t have much impact upon the rest of us, so we smile at the sportswriters’ attempts to predict outcomes and pretend they can analyze the impact of a reserve left tackle’s hangnail. Those who are elected to our city councils, state legislatures, Congress, and the Presidency do have an impact upon us. And we deserve a lot better than the arrogance of the news clan reporting the contests as if they were sporting events.

[Walter Brasch was a sportswriter and sports editor before becoming an award-winning public affairs/investigative reporter and columnist, who has covered several presidential campaigns. He was once a reporter for an Iowa newspaper. His current book is the critically-acclaimed social issues mystery-thriller, Before the First Snow.]

Who am I to fight tradition?

At the end of a revolutionary year (literally), we’ve had the longest continuous onslaught of crises and bad news since 1968.

And, as 1968 ended, there were two grace notes: The crew of the USS Pueblo (taken in early 1968) were released from North Korea. And, of course the Christmas Eve look at the Earth from the Moon, as the astronauts of Apollo 8 read from Genesis. (Madeline Murray O’Hare would file suit, and end that. But it was perfect, that once.)

This year, Kim Jong Il, also of North Korea died and was buried, so that was parallel. But we don’t launch our own astronauts anymore, so no lunar dramatic interpretations. On the other hand, no American politicians were assassinated this year, although the Tucson nut case came close with Gabby Giffords.

So, that’s good.

There were lots of stories, including the January 1 bird kill in Arkansas, which fell off the radar (no pun intended) fairly early.

Five heads of state (at least) fell from power. Long entrenched power structures collapsed. The Republican party fielded the weakest presidential candidate field since a Democratic hioliday skit. The Democrats, as ever, were dissatisfied with all their office holders, as the Republicans, as ever, were enthralled with their office holders, even as they openly drowned puppies and kittens for fun.

Ghod continued to love assholes, making so many of them, and a new generation of them took their place in the halls of power in Washington, D.C.

Climate change continued to ream the Land, and our Official Policy continued to be that there’s nothing we can do about it, because 1) it’s “controversial” and 2) saving the Human Species from Extinction might cost jobs. In a Recession? Can’t do that. Money is more important than survival, or, at least that seems to be the New American Dream.

Those with money made a LOT more of it, and those without made less than they had before.

Faux Nooz tried out their Fact Free Zone all year long, and the frustrated Junior High School students who dominate and monopolize talk radio were more than happy to aid and abet.

The “tea party” Freshman class of Congress brought us to the edge of government shutdown twice, gained nothing and managed to cost the USA its credit rating. Congress did nothing and allowed a GOP Lame Duck law passed by the defeated Republican Majority in 2006 to force the near bankruptcy of the Postal Service. But the thousands of post offices and hundreds of mail processing centers that don’t have to close won’t close until 2012, so we can save that for NEXT year’s roundup.

The first author to sell one million ebooks emerged in 2012, which is, in its way, the most profound change in reading since Plato complained how those new-fangled books were destroying the art of conversation. This year was the Year of the Kindle.

Kindle Fire or its equivalent

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I had some personal milestones, as well — since the aforementioned crap is ubiquitous with any lazy year-end roundup, which is WHY they actually exist: to let hung over and stultified-by-turkey newsrooms and “journalists” regurgitate old news, rather than roll off the couch to find any new news. That can wait until after New Years.

2011 was the 50th anniversary of my first piano lessons (a practice I ceased in 5th grade except for a semester in college).

2011 was the 15th anniversary of winning a Gold Medal at the World Internet Exposition, which came with CorelDraw 6, and materially changed my life, as I began to do a lot of commercial art with it — mostly for political and business entitities. And I got to pay income tax on the retail value (about $1000) of a bunch of “prize” software that all turned out to be obsolete versions of stuff that was being replaced by newer versions. (Corel had just released CorelDraw 7, f’r instance.)

Such is fortune.

2011 was the 35th anniversary of my professional writing career, as I dropped out of TCU and moved with a wife and two cats (one pregnant) to Hollywood, California, to the horror and universal disclaim of friends and relatives. I would like to note, at this date, that they ALL turned out to be full of it. I have worked at this accursed trade ever since. In late 1976, Richard Delap, of Delap’s F&SG Review, funded by Fred Patton of LASFS fame, handed me my first professional (e.g. compensated) assignment, a review of Will Bradbury’s The God Cell, which sucked.

Delap is dead, now, but his library was willed to the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, and it’s just kind of weird to see in their catalog. In fact, I met Theodore Sturgeon that summer, on July 3, 1976, a meeting that would profoundly alter my life, and this year Ted’s papers (he died in 1985) were finally donated to the Spencer, per his willed request/bequest. Tempus fugit.

Then again, I remember once going to a movie about my ex-employer — which both Sturgeon and I shared at that time; I was his editor — which was equally surreal. Strange, small world. So many that I knew starting out are dead, now. (And so many that the world would be be a happier place without are still alive and snarking.)

And, finally, 2011 was the 40th anniversary of my picking up the guitar for the first time.

SCR mural in Nebraska Statehouse

My cousin, Steven Cornelius Roberts (who later made his mark in the world of art, and painted several murals in the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska) showed me how to play the basic chords on a steel-string guitar, and introduced me to the constant wonder of left-hand finger calluses. And, as with baseball, it was too expensive to find a left-handed guitar, so I learned right-handed. That summer, in Omaha, Nebraska also was my first and last guitar lesson.

Thanks, Steve — belatedly, if I didn’t say so at the time.

The Redhead and my Yamaha FG 110. The latter lasted longer. Circa 1980

I finally got a decent guitar in 1975, for $40. It was a Yamaha FG 110, and it cost $15 for the pawn ticket and $25 to get it out of hock. Someone had drawn a star in the soft wood of the soundboard with a ballpoint pen, but it was pristine, otherwise, and I had it for the next 25 years (until it was stolen).

I realize that this has nothing much to do with 2011, except that I bought the equivalent of the FG110 on sale at Guitar Center this year, and, after five years of diabetic neuropathy that has made it impossible for me to hold a pick, I am, once again, able to play.* And that’s an unexpected wonderful thing.

[Alpha lipoic acid, 300 mg. once a day to repair nerve damage. I can testify that it works. My guitar no longer gently weeps, but is again, a faithful friend and boon companion.]

I don’t have any Jimmy Page, Andres Segovia or Leo Kottke chops to show off here, but I will end this with my “ending” piece, which I’ve pretty much ended all my performances since, say, 1990 with.

Happy New Year, Gary

This if off the live board at my weekly “Acoustic Air Force” open mic, and has only been tweaked ever so slightly. The guitar/vocal mix is what it was, and the ambient audience sounds are whatever the live mic picked up. I learned this song from my friend G.T. Morse, in Babes in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and it was several years before I heard the original, by Lyle Lovett. And I learned an important thing then: this doesn’t sound a THING like Lovett’s version. “If I Had A Boat” – Rascals Tavern, 1997.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or, watch on YouTube by clicking here

Or just listen/download: MP3, 2.7 megabytes.

If I Had A Boat – Hart Williams version 1997

Thank you, good night, and don’t forget to tip your bartenders and wait staff. My name is Hart Williams and I’ll be here all week.

And if you think you might could maybe need a designated driver to get home, then you DEFINITELY need a designated driver.

Courage.

================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

by WALTER BRASCH

There is nothing the media love more than a good celebrity sex scandal.

Since the story of Scarlett Johansson’s purloined nude pictures had run its course, and the media squeezed every drop of ink it could from the Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries engagement/wedding/marriage/divorce, they had to find something else to feed the beast with the insatiable appetite.

Something else was Penn State. Neatly packaged for the media was the trifecta of what passes as journalism—sex, scandal, and celebrity. And so the media circus rolled into State College, salivating at their good fortune.

The “sex” part of the story was that Jerry Sandusky, former defensive coordinator of the Nittany Lions, was accused of 21 felony counts of sexual abuse of boys. A 23-page Grand Jury report, released Nov. 4 following a drawn-out three-year investigation, detailed some of the specifics. However, this story, no matter what the media say it is, is not about sex. It is about child molestation, child abuse, and endangering the welfare of a child. Big difference.

The “scandal” is that it appeared that high-ranking Penn State officials, although they restricted Sandusky’s access to campus, didn’t contact police or child protection services, possibly believing they were protecting the university’s image.

The “celebrity” part is Joe Paterno, who listened to a graduate assistant who says he saw an act of sodomy by Sandusky, and then, disgusted by what Sandusky may have done, reported it the athletics director and senior vice-president for administration. Paterno met his legal responsibility, and isn’t under any criminal investigation. Questions to Paterno in court would probably result in the defense objecting to hearsay testimony since Paterno never witnessed the act.  

Almost every Pennsylvania TV station and dozens of networks sent camera crews into State College. As the number of TV crews increased, the quality of reporting sank, as almost every on-air reporter seemed to feel a need to ask even dumber questions and make dumber statements than every other reporter. These are the TV stations that send camera crews to out-of-town football games, Spring training in Florida, and bowl games, yet have downsized their news staff, plead economic poverty, and failed to adequately cover critical news stories. In Pennsylvania, it has meant little original reporting about conflict-of-interest and ethics scandals in the state legislature. Sports, apparently, is “sexy”; the public’s money and legislature integrity aren’t.

These are the same members of the media who for many of Paterno’s 46 years as head coach had filed stories that he should step down after any two losses in a row, or during a losing season, or even a season that didn’t have enough wins. The media had also layered comments that Paterno was everything but senile, that he was too old to be coaching. But, Paterno, known in the media as “JoePa,” kept winning, and kept demanding academic and athletic excellence in addition to moral integrity from his players. The university’s library, not any of its athletic buildings, is named for him. America’s best-known coach was building not a place for future NFL stars, but a place where college students could supplement their education to become productive members of society. His graduation rate is among the highest in Division I athletics.

However, based upon the amount of newsprint and air time given to this story, you would swear that Paterno was guilty, arrested, and probably already convicted. The media almost forgot about Sandusky as they began piling on to Paterno. Six column headlines and five minute network stories dominated the news agenda. Like sharks, they smelled blood and circled their prey, a towering figure about to be toppled. With little evidence, these sanctimonious scavengers called for one of the most ethical and inspirational coaches and professors to resign, claiming he didn’t do enough, that he should have personally called the police rather than follow established protocol.

.Many of the media horde, who had never written any story about Penn State’s excellent academic and research programs, soon began pumping out ludicrous statements that Penn State’s reputation would be tarnished for years. Despite their self-righteous denials, the screeching of “Joe Must Go” in one-inch bold black headlines undoubtedly influenced the university’s board of trustees, which was constantly proving that incompetence isn’t just a media trait. Their attitude seemed to be not whether what Paterno did was a terminable offense, but that to terminate him would somehow save the university’s tarnished reputation—and maybe preserve the value of their own luxury seats at Beaver Stadium.

On Wednesday, Nov. 9, three days before the Penn State/Nebraska game, which was to be the last home game of the season, the Trustees, with a push from Gov. Tom Corbett, fired Paterno, thus justifying all the ink and air time spent by the media that seemed distracted from the real story—Sandusky, not Paterno, was arrested.

That night, thousands of students staged a demonstration of support for Paterno. The media called it a riot and almost universally condemned the students for exercising a First Amendment right of peaceful assembly and freedom of speech. What little damage done—the highest estimate was about $20,000—was by a relatively small number of participants.

On game day, the media camped in front of Paterno’s house. ESPN coverage of the game, which drew about twice as many viewers as expected, was constantly punctuated by the “scandal,” and what Paterno did and didn’t do. Tragedy had suddenly become a sport.

Contributing to the media’s shameful performance were mountains of crocodile tears, dripping with moral indignation. Had the media spent even a tenth of the time before the Penn State scandal to publish and air stories about child welfare problems, and what could be done to protect the most vulnerable of society, their myriad comments would have been credible.

In contrast to the masses, several reporters did credible reporting, including the hometown Centre Daily Times. But the best reporting might be that of Sara Ganim, who had begun her investigation first at the Centre Daily Times before moving to the Harrisburg Patriot-News. Three years after graduating from Penn State, she broke the story in March that the Grand Jury was investigating Sandusky and others. Her story at the time didn’t get much traction. But, for several months she meticulously gathered facts and wrote news, not opinion and speculation, which dominated the work of many of her colleagues, many of whom showed they were incapable of even reaching the journalistic standards of reporting at the National Enquirer.

Perhaps Joe Paterno should have done more; perhaps he should have called the police or at least followed-up with his earlier concern. But, we don’t know yet the facts.

One concern remains. Today, these Monday Morning Quarterbacks of the media and a pack of largely anonymous self-righteous fans all say that unlike Paterno they would have done “the right thing.” How many, if faced by the same set of circumstances, would have done “the right thing” a month ago?

 [Assisting on this story was Rosemary Brasch. Dr. Brasch had begun his journalism career as a sports writer and sports editor before moving into public affairs/investigative journalism. He is an award-winning syndicated columnist and retired journalism professor. His latest of 17 books is Before the First Snow, a story of the counter-culture.]

One throws up one’s hands in despair for poor Reason, so oft invoked, so rarely practiced.

Take a look at the snarling coverage.

(I don’t know that any actual snarling is going on, but there is a general blogospheric need for venting, from the evidence.)

The tacitly agreed-upon tactic seems to be to smear using the 1 = all proposition and hoping the endless scheiss-sturm will rub off on the Occupy Wall Street Protests around the nation and around the world.

Against such a tide of chaos this little skiff of a blog cannot hope to row.

So, here’s something funny I found, instead. Author unknown:

And so it goes.

Uh, what were we talking about, again?

(Please do not send this in an e-mail to your grandmother. Thanks.)

Courage.

I have pointedly refrained from commenting on the OWS protests now transpiring worldwide, prior to this date.

The Antisemitic  ”Antisemitism” smear from the RNC last week

There is a good reason for this: generally when I write about a topic, I like to know something about it. I like to THINK about it. The early reports and coverage presented us with a wealth of information, but a paucity of knowledge.

Now, perhaps, I can comment more intelligently on certain aspects of the phenomenon (or, more precisely, phenomena). I would adjure the pundit class to follow this salutary example, but one might as well attempt to teach differential calculus to a three-toed tree frog.

Take a look at Memeorandum, this very minute that I write this:

You might note the “Fox 5 News reporter assaulted” at the bottom, the dying ember of yet another of the endless attacks launched on OWS in the “mainstream” media during the past week. And I’m not going to touch the “public masturbation” smear with a ten foot poll.

Over the course of the past week, OWS demonstrators have been characterized as “dirty hippies,” “communists,” “socialists,” lazy bums who need to get a job and a life, they are violent, they are Antisemites* (* as noted in Thursday’s  ”The Monkey Cage“), the ubiquitous “leftists” — a parasitic insult that grows like a tapeworm over time, since the demonization of “liberals” had reached a point that it no longer produced the requisite spasm of pleasure in hating the Other, a viral meme that multiplies a secret message, like “Death Tax” and not “NO heriditary oligarchies” “leftists” being a term formerly reserved for secretly Communist political parties overseas, or guerrillas we didn’t support, as opposed to guerrillas we DID support, known in the parlance as “freedom fighters” — and, the most corrupt and sleazy “mainstream” story of all: are the Occupy Wall Street Protesters like the Tea Party, or aren’t they like the Tea Party, even though the question begs itself.

The smear and slime campaign merely indicates that the Beast has become irritated. The real story was the weeks in which the self-same “Establishment” media exercised a near-total media blackout on the protests. It wasn’t until Tony Baloney pepper-sprayed two young women in the face that the “world” took notice.

This morning (12 hours later), the arrests have shifted from Portland, Oregon and Oakland, California to Denver, Colorado.

We have been here before.

In a week in which we finally announced our final withdrawal from Iraq — remember Iraq? that little war that ceased to be newsworthy in direct proportion to the embarrassment that it caused us — we OUGHT to remember the lesson of Vietnam (which would have kept us out of Iraq, had those in power noticed), and the complicity of the much more diverse media of the age. We only had three networks, of course, but many more radio, magazine and newspaper outlets, bureaus and reporters.

And they danced us down the primrose path to national disaster every bit as willingly as the modern MSM (main stream media) danced us down the razor wire footpath into Iraq.

And we were wrong. Demonstrably wrong, morally wrong and historically wrong.

We went in to take out ONE man (and maybe some of his cronies), but we missed to the tune of at least 100,000 dead and 2 million refugees. The war that got the White House Office of Management and Budget director fired for suggesting that the war might cost $200 billion (because it would “pay for itself”) has cost five times that amount. And when the one man was finally taken through a “trial” and sentenced to death, he was hung by a noose in a warehouse in the middle of the night by men in ski masks.

Thus belieing the whole “trial” notion in the eyes of the world.

Hundreds of thousands demonstrated around the world. And, while we claimed to be “spreading democracy” those selfsame protests failed to ever show up on the “Camelized” media.

“Camelized”? Yeah. There used to be one brand of cigarettes called “Camels.” They had no filters until the late 1960s, and took their name from a supposed blend of Turkish and American tobaccos.

But now, there are a thousand flavors of Camels®: Camel Lights, Camel Wides, Camel Filters, Camel Menthols, Camel Menthol Lights, and a whole line of flavored and specialty Camels that it beggars the mind to keep up with.

The modern media have become Camels: MsNBC, CNBC, NBC, of course, but also The Weather Channel and .. oh wait [Wikipedia]:

The formation of NBC Universal saw the establishment of NBC Universal Cable, which oversees the distribution, marketing, and advertisement sales for thirteen channels (Bravo, Bravo HD+ (eventually renamed Universal HD), Chiller, CNBC, CNBC World, MSNBC, mun2, Syfy, ShopNBC, Telemundo, Cloo, USA Network and the Olympic Games on cable). NBC Universal Cable also manages the company’s investments in A&E, the History Channel, History Channel International, the Biography Channel, National Geographic International, and TiVo. The cable division also used to operate NBC Weather Plus until 2008.

A better name for the media company might well be “Engulf & Devour”:

Engulf & Devour logo from Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie

[ibid.]:

In August 2007, NBC Universal purchased Sparrowhawk Media Group and renamed it NBC Universal Global Networks. This acquisition gave NBC Universal all Hallmark channels outside the United States, plus the British channels: Diva TV, Movies 24, Hallmark Channel and the upcoming channel, KidsCo.^[14] Later that fall, the company also acquired the Oxygen network in a separate $925 million deal.^[15] The sale was completed one month later.

In the summer of 2008, NBC Universal, Blackstone Group and Bain Capital announced their intentions to buy The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications. The deal closed on September 12, 2008.^[16] Shortly after the acquisition completed, NBC announced that their existing TV weather network, NBC Weather Plus, would be shut down by December 31, 2008.

The summer of 2008, marked NBC Universal’s first venture into the United Kingdom by acquiring British television production company Carnival Films.^[17]

On November 12, 2008, NBC Universal acquired 80.1% of Geneon Entertainment from Dentsu in Japan, merging it with Universal Pictures International Entertainment to form a new company,^[18] Geneon Universal Entertainment Japan.^[19]

On March 16, 2009, NBC Universal-owned cable channel Sci Fi announced that it would be changing its name to Syfy, replacing a generic term with a proprietary brand name that can be trademarked.^[20] [...]

On August 27, 2009, A&E Television Networks (A&E) merged with Lifetime Entertainment Services (Lifetime),^[23][24] giving NBC Universal an equal share of both Lifetime and A&E with The Walt Disney Company and Hearst.

But they’re all Camels. Same stuff packaged in a thousand different ways.

Not even a fraction of all the “Camel” packaging

And, in the case of media, Camels in joint ventures with Marlboros, as in Walt Disney (ABC) in half share with NBC.

But my point isn’t to delve deeply into the endless profusions of the Same Old Crap.

As in our supermarkets, the media’s “diversity” is more a triumph of packaging than actual diversity. As you can buy the “good” brand of macaroni & cheese, or the store label brand, or the “generic” brand in three different boxes with three different labels that were all made at the same factory (with the store and generic brands intentionally made to a slightly cheaper quality), so, too, MsNBC routinely shows clips of late night comedians Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon (NBC) along with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (CBS), Dave Letterman and Craig Ferguson (also CBS) and Jimmy Kimmel (ABC/Walt Disney that NBC is going halfsies in a couple cable channels with).

The incestuous nature of the old “Big Three” broadcast networks is nearly as ubiquitous as it was PRE-cable. And, well, I don’t have to tell you about radio.

The point is that when these self-same clowns (or their immediate ancestors) danced us into Vietnam, the “counterculture” came up with underground newspapers, and FM radio, and all that remains is Rolling Stone magazine, which seems as oddly anachronistic as Playboy has for a long time now.

The Village Voice and the successor to the Los Angeles Free Press, the LA WEEKLY, are now all part of a national media company. And the newspapers that aren’t going out of business tend to be part of media megachains.

Shades of Wikileaks!

Our media have become one colossal, endless experiment in Branding.

On the other hand, the underground newspapers of today are the social networking that’s put together the OWS movement, that’s organized around the world, and form the only thin, tenuous counterbalance to our imperial media.

And we desperately need countermedia when for years the “official” media have been as conscientious in censoring unpleasant news as they have in following the disappearance of attractive young White women.

Missing for, literally, DAYS!

So, it’s no accident that attempts are inevitably made to silence that media. The lesson of Egypt hasn’t been lost on the plutocrats.

The latest has received little attention :

New Bipartisan Bill Will Allow U.S. Gov’t To Shut Off Any Website, Anywhere, For Any Reason
By KEN LAYNE, Wonkette
4:52 PM OCTOBER 27, 2011

You know how the politicians are always saying we need to be competitive with China? Well, we are about to get super competitive when it comes to internal censorship of the global Internet. Everybody except for a handful of malcontent “privacy activists” is behind the bold new plan to make all Internet service providers in the United States turn off any domain within five days, if Washington says “turn it off.” As usual, this new legislation is cloaked in bullshit terminology about copyright and lost profits for media conglomerates, but the result is exactly the same as China’s “great firewall” — except, this being the land of “corporations are people, my friends,” the ISPs will be responsible for the dirty work instead of some top-level government technological agency….

So: what does Occupy Wall Street say about America?

It says that Americans must, once again, make their own voices heard OUTSIDE of the Establishment media, whose featherbedding requires that they fall into the feather bed of power and influence.

As has happened before.

How is Occupy Wall Street unlike the Tea Party Movement?

Er … OWS is not based on a fundamental misunderstanding of a historical incident?

Or, that a media cheerled by Faux Nooz actively pushed the Tea Party protests, with CNN even getting into bed with one corporate bus tour (or two or three), while I have yet to see any giant CNN-logo signage sleeping bags at OWS.

Tea Partiers and Occupy Wall Street agree: media is controlled;
they merely disagree as to by whom.

But they MAY be dirty communist hippie masturbators who violently need to get a job.

At least that’s the way it plays in the funny papers.

Courage.

================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Newspaper columnist Ann Coulter, spreading the lies of the extreme right wing, called the Occupy Wall Street protestors, “tattooed, body-pierced, sunken-chested 19-year-olds getting in fights with the police for fun.” She claimed the protestors, now in the thousands in New York, are “directionless losers [who] pose for cameras while uttering random liberal clichés lacking any reason or coherence.” (Several hundred thousand of these “directionless losers” are expected to attend rallies in more than 650 cities, Oct. 15.)

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), House majority leader, called the protest nothing more than “growing mobs,” completely oblivious to his myriad statements that he supports “mobs” when they are from the Tea Party. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, tacking as far right as possible to avoid anyone thinking he was once a moderate, called the protest “dangerous.”

Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, in a moment that demonstrated how out of touch he is with the economic reality of the five-year recession, argued, “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks; if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!”

Glenn Beck, too irrational even for Fox News, which terminated him less than two years after it tried to make him a TV superstar, told his radio audience, the protestors “will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you.”

Lauren Ellis of Mother Jones, at one time a cutting edge magazine for social justice, believed that the protestors have a “lack of focus.” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, wrote, “A protest without an objective is like a party or a picnic of the unemployed and the indolent. Unless you have an objective, what are you doing out there?”

First, let’s see just who these protestors really are. And then, let’s see what they stand for, since the mainstream media, of which Fox News is an entrenched part, don’t seem to be getting the message from the people.

The protestors rightly say they are part of the 99 percent; the other one percent have 42 percent of the nation’s wealth, the top 20 percent have more than 85 percent of the nation’s wealth, the highest accumulation since 1928, the year before the Great Depression. Even the most oblivious recognize the protestors as a large cross-section of America. They are students and teachers; housewives, plumbers, and physicians; combat veterans from every war from World War II to the present. They are young, middle-aged, and elderly. They are high school dropouts and Ph.D.s. They are from all religions and no religion, and a broad spectrum of political views.

Support has come from senior politicians with very different philosophies. Vice President Joe Biden believes the protests are because “In the minds of the vast majority of the American–the middle class is being screwed.” Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), unlike a vast majority of Republican politicians, stated, “If they were demonstrating peacefully, and making a point, and arguing our case, and drawing attention to the Fed—I would say, ‘good!’”

Second, like all protests, there are different opinions within the ranks. But, there is a core of beliefs. The protestors are fed up with corporate greed that has a base of corporate welfare and special tax benefits for the rich. They support the trade union movement, Medicare and Social Security, affordable health care for all citizens, and programs to assist the unemployed, disenfranchised, and underclass. A nation that cannot take care of the least among us doesn’t deserve to be called the best of us.

They’re mad that the home mortgage crisis, begun when greed overcame ethics and was then magnified by the failure of regulatory agencies and the Congress to provide adequate oversight, robbed all of America of its financial security. During the first half of this year alone, banks and lending agencies have sent notices to more than 1.2 million homeowners whose loans and mortgages are in default status, according to RealtyTrak. Of course, less regulation is just what conservatives want—after all, their mantra has become, “no government in our lives.”

The protestors are mad that the wealthiest corporations pay little or no taxes. They point to the Bank of America, part of the mortgage crisis problem, which earned a $4.4 billion profit last year, but received a $1.9 billion tax refund on top of a bailout of about $1 trillion. They look at ExxonMobil, which earned more than $19 billion profit in 2009, paid no taxes and received a $156 million federal rebate. Its profit for the first half of 2011 is about $ 21.3 billion.

They rightfully note that it is slimy when General Electric, whose CEO is a close Obama advisor, earned a $26 billion profit during the past five years, but still received a $4.1 billion refund.  

They’re mad that the federal government has given the oil industry more than $4 billion in subsidy, although the industry earned more than $1 trillion in profits the past decade.

They’re mad that Goldman Sachs, after receiving a $10 billion government bailout, and a $2.7 billion profit in the first quarter of 2011, shipped about 1,000 jobs overseas. During the past decade, corporations, which have paid little or no federal taxes, have outsourced at least 2.4 million jobs and are hoarding trillions which could be used to spur job growth and the economy.

They’re mad that corporations that took federal bailout money gave seven-figure bonuses to their executives.

They’re mad that the U.S., of all industrialized countries, has the highest ratio of executive pay to that of the average worker. The U.S. average is about 300 to 475 times that of the average worker. In Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and England, the average CEO earns between 10 and 20 times what the average worker earns, and no one in those countries believes the CEOs are underpaid.

They’re mad that 47 percent of all persons who earned at least $250,000 last year, including about 1,500 millionaires, paid no taxes, according to Newsmax. If you’re a Republican member of Congress, that’s perfectly acceptable. They’re the ones who thought President Obama was launching class warfare against the rich by trying to restore the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans. They succeeded in blocking tax reform and a jobs bill, but failed to understand the simple reality—if there is class warfare, it is being waged by the elite greedy and their Congressional lackeys.

Herman Cain, Fox TV pundit Sean Hannity, and others from the extreme right wing said the protestors are un-American, apparently for protesting corporate greed. The Occupy Wall Street protestors aren’t un-American; those who defend the destruction of the middle class by defending greed, and unethical and illegal behavior, are.

[Walter Brasch is an award-winning syndicated columnist, and the author of 17 books. His latest book is Before the First Snow, a social issues mystery set in rural Pennsylvania.]