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Monday, July 28, 2003
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Farewell, Bob Hope
3:32:38 PM 
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Get Nader
Props to Nate over at Changemedia for turning me on to this article by Michael Tomasky at The American Prospect.
Tomasky says that the Democratic candidate should attack Ralph Nader, and do so quickly and decisively. He also has lots of choice things to say about people who voted for Nader, almost all of which I agree with. All that, and a Sister Souljah reference, too. You can't go wrong.
3:21:25 PM
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TV Is So Gay
To continue the TV discussion, there is much hoopla over the success of Bravo!'s new program "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy". The premise of the show is that six gay guys help a straight guy get his romantic and social shit together. One NBC executive (NBC owns Bravo!) said that "Queer Eye" alone might help Bravo! double the $60 million it made last year.
How is that even remotely possible? One show, that's only been on two weeks, and now it's worth $60 mil? Is the Gay TV Audience really that powerful? I mean, I know the number: 10%. But it's not like that 10% hasn't been watching TV up until now.
Ultimately, the show will succeed on its merits, and most reviews have been pretty good. It's an interesting hook for a show, and TV needs more interesting shows.
What I find interesting is that "Will & Grace" gets so much credit for "revolutionizing TV", and making TV "gay friendly".
First of all, Ellen Degeneres walked that road well before "Will & Grace". She should get the credit. Remember the boycotts of ABC by sponsors? "Will & Grace" didn't have to deal with that, because Ellen did. She's the pioneer. And maybe a little reflected credit to John Ritter, for being willing to play a guy who was pretending to be gay.
Second, is it just me, or is "Will & Grace" like a gay cartoon? I mean, I've known a fair number of gay men. Some were absolutely flaming, but most just weren't. And their gayness didn't tend to be the focal point of all jokes and plot developments around them. I wonder if the obvious gayness of the gay men you see on TV is so that mainstream people won't have to deal with ambiguities. It's like it's a rule: Every Gay Person On TV Must Be Obviously Gay.
"Will & Grace" succeeds because, for the most part, it is funny enough, the stars are attractive, and it had the benefit of NBC's strong Thursday lineup. "Will & Grace" might have opened up the possibility of successful gay-oriented programming, but shows won't succeed just because they are gay. They have to be good, too.
I like that TV can show these lives, these personalities. It was long overdue. But when do you risk reducing all gay men to fluttering swishbucklers? At what point do non-overtly gay guys question whether it was worth the extra exposure for all of America to expect them to swish on command?
This leaves me a bit cynical. TV (meaning "network TV) wasn't ready to "go gay" with Ellen, because the ratings weren't there. But now "Will & Grace" hits, and suddenly TV is "progressive". We can "tell their stories" now.
As long as the ratings are good. As long as the people are interesting and non-threatening (read: flaming).
Don't buy it. It's progress to have gay-themed shows on TV, but the better measure of progress will be when you can't tell the gay people from the straight people on TV. Just like real life, most of the time.
2:58:05 PM
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TV Has Changed
There is a scene in the great movie "48 Hours", where Eddie Murphy sees TV for the first time in about three years. It's just these women against a white backdrop, doing aerobics. Murphy stands there, mesmerized by it. All he can say is: "TV has changed."
Saturday night, I felt the same way. There are so many great networks out there running so much stuff, like Trio. But beyond that, the envelope for what can be done is just so much farther out there than I remember it being. Comedy Channel alone is doing things I don't think you could see on HBO ten years ago.
I can't remember all the shows I watched, as friend of Pipeline Cliff P. is a virtuoso with the remote, but here are a few:
Reno 911-This is a spoof of COPS-style reality shows. It purports to follow Reno's finest around the streets. I only saw about half each of two episodes, but I thought it was damn funny.
Good Clean Porn-I thought this was hilarious, too, but the joke might get a bit old after, say, one season. The show is a spoof of the bad plots and acting in porn films. It basically is like watching a porn film without the sex. It's all done tongue-in-cheek, of course. I think this was on Trio, which is a network I don't get with my pathetic unorthodox cable package.
I'm With Busey-This is just a guy who tools around with Gary Busey, who's insane. That's all it is. It was weird, and a little funny.
Doggie Fizzle-This is Snoop Dog's show. Seeing him do sketch comedy is strange. Some of it was good, some horribly bad. I worry about Snoop's career path.
The video channels alone are amazing. There is so much great live footage of old classic bands that you can see now. You wouldn't think an old Moody Blues concert set with Denny Laine could be interesting, but it was.
And, of course, I watched as the South Park kids discovered the "Brown Noise".
The stark contrast between the greatness of what you can find on so many cable networks, and the absolute pandering drivel on the networks is amazing. TV's not dead. It's just changing. And it's getting better, if you can find the right stuff.
11:43:34 AM
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Classic Wally
As a follower of the Wolves, I sometimes find myself trying to explain why the rest of the team seems to not like Wally Szczerbiak very much.
Here's a great example:
In Sid Hartman's column from yesterday, Wally explains his abysmal playoff performance. Before I run the quote, though, I need to make sure you understand how bad Wally was. He was Celine Dion bad. Cool World, Ghost Dad, Heaven's Gate bad. He couldn't shoot. He certainly couldn't dribble, but that didn't stop him from trying to dribble. He was a Human Turnover. You could visibly see the cringes on the faces of the Wolves bench every time he touched the ball.
Even Lakers fans felt sorry for him.
So what does Wally have to say about it?
"The situation where the Lakers were trying to really take me out of my game, and we were going hot one way, and I tried to do whatever I could to help us win, but we came up a little short. Hopefully next year it can be different. They did a lot of grabbing and holding and stuff like that. You know, they really brought it in on me because I think I was starting to play well toward the end of the year, and come around after the injury."
Let's break that down. I'll insert the Pipeline Translation in the next version:
"The situation where the Lakers were trying to really take me out of my game, (Pipeline Translation: They were persecuting me. They had to dedicate all their resources to stopping me.) and we were going hot one way, (PT: Troy Hudson kept shooting the ball all by himself, and didn't get me involved.) and I tried to do whatever I could to help us win, (PT: I took a horrible shot, assuming I hadn't given the Lakers the ball after attempting a laughable one-on-one move that I don't have.) but we came up a little short. Hopefully next year it can be different. They did a lot of grabbing and holding and stuff like that. (PT: They were fouling me, you know. That's why I sucked. They fouled me.) You know, they really brought it in on me because I think I was starting to play well toward the end of the year, and come around after the injury."
I highlighted that last part because that's all you really need to know about Wally. He sucked because he was actually a good player! See, Wally's not "bad". He's good. The only real problem with Wally's theory is that the Lakers didn't "really bring it on him" at all. They didn't even double him (and why would they?). All they did was play tight single coverage on him, and attack him because they know he can't dribble or pass, and yet he will always try to dribble, usually into traffic.
What a dumbass.
10:40:00 AM
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Cheaters!
An sports myth gained considerably more credibility over the weekend. Yesterday, the StarTribune published an interview with the man who oversaw maintenance of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome for many years. This man, Dick Ericson, claims that he turned on the ventilation fans behind home plate in an effort to help the ball carry farther. But he only did so when the Twins were behind, or in some cases, only in the bottom of the ninth or in extra innings.
Why is this important? Well, for one thing, it's cheating, plain and simple. The club claims they had no knowledge of it, and Ericson supports that claim, saying he acted on his own.
A physics professor from the University of Minnesota tried to determine how much impact the fans could have. His results were mixed; one day, he found that the fans could add an average of 3.5 feet to each flyball. On another day, he found no difference. He cannot explain the variation.
He also found that if you reverse the effect, and have the fans blow in from the outfield, that balls would average 3.5 feet less. In the article, former Ranger manager and current idiot Bobby Valentine says that his players talked about feeling a breeze in their face while in the field, but also feeling it while at bat.
Hmm.
It's a small sample size, of course, but the StarTribune looked at the data from 1987, one of the years Ericson said he manipulated the air currents. The Twins hit substantially more home runs in the bottom of the ninth and extra innings than their opponents did. And the Twins had the widest variation between home winning percentage and road winning percentage during that time.
I was a Royals fan till the early '90s. I remember hearing the myth that the fans and ducts did some interesting things for the Twins. I'm now a Twins fan. This revelation makes me angry. For one thing, this cheating hurt my team at the time, the Royals.
For another, this cheater no longer works at the Dome, and so he can't help my current team.
10:25:43 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Doug Hennessee.
Last update: 8/1/2003; 1:13:21 PM.
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