Happy Accidents

The Cardboard Shadow of My Father

2005-09-15T23:15:00.000-04:00

One of the most personal things I've ever written was something I did last year called "The Cardboard Shadow of My Father". It was the story of my father losing his foot to diabetes shortly after one of the highlights of his life, being grand marshal of a parade.

I present it again unchanged.

It was created in my father's honor for one of the highlights of his life: the banquet in his honor for being the Grand Marshal of the Bucks County St. Patrick's Day Parade. When I first saw it, I laughed. I mean, who expects to see their father immortalized as a cardboard standee?

Oh, you know them, they're the standup cutouts that are more often seen at a gag photo booth at an amusement park or in a "Star Wars" geek's room. But my father isn't Darth Vader, he's just Dad.

We made sure we brought him back with us after the dinner was over and we put him by the door. It turns out that this was the worst place to put him because whenever we walked down the stairs and flipped on the lights, a smiling, oddly thinner and shorter version of my father would greet you silently. After one too many screams from my family members, he was moved to the space beside our china closet and right next to the kitchen table.

Meanwhile, my father was not doing so well. Everyone began becoming concerned about the color of his foot. I never saw it, but I was told that it was becoming black. This was, of course, not a good sign and he went to the podiatrist. Of course, the podiatrist was adamant that he immediately check himself into the hospital to have it examined.

He did.

He called me from the hospital to ask me to please call someone to tell them that he wasn't going to be able to meet up with them later on that day. I can't remember exactly who he wanted me to call, but I remember it really wasn't important. I remember mostly the sound of my father afraid.

I've never heard my father scared before. Well, maybe I have, but before...when he was afraid that I or one of my brothers might get hurt, it came out as anger and was shouted. Or when he was letting us know that he was disappointed in us, he'd yell.

His tone was completely different than that. One much more likely to come from a condemned man than my father. And yet, perhaps he felt like this might be it. He hates hospitals. I'm certain he sees them as cathedrals of death rather than as places where people go to become well.

Over the next day, the news wasn't good as his foot became blacker and blacker. There was talk amongst the doctors of my father losing his whole leg as opposed to just the foot. They were making an attempt to save it, though.

That night, after coming home from the hospital and after shutting off the TV to go to bed. I walked through the doorway and past the kitchen. My clumsy arm caught the edge of something as I walked by and I knocked it down.

I knocked down my father.

Sure, it wasn't the real thing-it was a six foot tall cardboard cutout, of course- but I knew this was in no way a good sign. I picked him up and put him back in his spot. Then I trudged up the stairs into my bed, troubled.

The picture that is represented in the cutout was taken on the day of the parade. The day my father insisted he walk the entire parade route unassisted in his dress shoes. He did. He paid a price for it. Too high a price. That was the day, we believe, his foot took a turn for the worse.

By the end of the week, he had lost most of his foot. He soon came home and he's now at the foot of the stairs. It's tough for him to walk, but from time to time he does...often walking past his bipedal doppelganger. But the lack of the foot isn't why they're different.

One is smiling. The other is not.

I Love the New Yorker

2005-07-23T22:50:00.000-04:00

This year I became a subscriber to the New Yorker. I became a fan when I started buying it for something to read on the train. I like it for its content, of course, but a big side benefit is that you feel smart for reading it and look smart for holding it.

C'mon, you've seen people reading a magazine in public. What does someone reading Cosmo say to you? Maxim? Mini Truckin' Magazine? Compare that to seeing someone engrossed in an article in the New Yorker. That's the person you'd choose to be your accountant, isn't it?

Live 8 a huge success...except on TV

2005-07-02T21:45:00.000-04:00

It was an excellent concert. It's just too bad you couldn't tell that from the web and TV coverage of the event.

MTV carried little to nothing live. Everything was on tape delay and even then songs were not played in their entirety. The hosts were, for the most part, unnecessary and would often serve only to recap things they were just going to show you in a minute anyway.

The Snoop Dogg performance was bowdlerized badly. It was show at least twice and both times it appeared that only half of the swears that Snoop dropped were muted. Why bother half-assed, MTV? It's called video tape. If you were tape delaying everything, you can do that in the production truck before you sent it out...and when you make a mistake, do it again for the replay.

The AOL stuff wasn't much better. Even with a broadband connection, I couldn't get the video to work in either IE or Firefox. The audio worked in IE, but sounded so tinny and distant that I gave up. Apparently, though most others were able to get through and had a good result. It's a shame that AOL's website isn't yet compatible with Firefox, though. The error message said it will be sometime this month.

The highlight show on ABC was much better. It was taste of everything that went on today throughout the world with no interruptions. They play the whole song, then move to another performance somewhere else. It's what MTV's coverage should have been.

Still, the message that was supposed to get across was made and very powerfully at times. That's what it was all about.

Cruise Controlled

2005-06-18T12:00:00.000-04:00

TomKat? Damn. Now I'm nostalgic for those halcyon days when we had good couple names like Bennifer, Romber and Brangelina.

End of the Trend: Couple Name Conflation

2005-06-09T22:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, first it was Bennifer, then it was Romber, then it was Bennifer 2, now it's Brangelina?

Can we stop it with the name conflation of newsworthy couples? I guess it was cute at first, but now with Brangelina, it's just embarassing. I feel sorry for the people who have to type that out day after day for a job.

And is Brangelina even fair? Brad gets only half of his name and Angelina (who is hot, but frightens me) gets the whole thing. I guess it could be Bra and Ngelina, but that's just weird. Br is more of a believable consonant blend than Ng (in non-Asian names, natch) I call foul on behalf of the Br half of the couple.

Br, you can thank me later.

Free Katie

2005-06-08T03:00:00.000-04:00

Like I've been saying, the best way for Tom Cruise to not seem gay is to date one of the most famous virgins on the planet. The only thing not gayer would have been to start dating James van der Beek himself.

But please, Tom, Free Katie before she starts believing in Xenu. Xenu's usually not a topic of discussion in Roman Catholic homes...

What I feel about Felt

2005-06-06T13:00:00.000-04:00

The past week has been Deep Throat-mania. With the self-outing of W. Mark Felt as the legendary whistle-blower, many former Nixon staffers have taken to the air to brand Felt as a traitor who was disloyal to Nixon.

While I can't say that Felt's motives were purely selfless (he did want the top post at the FBI, after all), I can say that he surely put himself at risk to help right things he saw that were wrong. Felt tried to make sure that the Nixonites (who clearly still would walk into a fire for him) wouldn't make all the evidence disappear.

I'm not sure why the Nixon crowd is so loyal. He broke the law. He violated the nation's trust. He tried to cover it all up. Why should he get a pass, Pat Buchanan? Why should Felt be the goat, Robert Novak?

I'm glad Mark Felt did what he did. It's about the only honest thing done in DC in my memory, even if it was illegal.

Live8

2005-06-01T14:45:00.000-04:00

Live8, the Live Aid sequel concert is landing in Philadelphia next month. Not to seem ungrateful, though, but the truth is that the Philly lineup is nothing compared to the London concert. They have Paul McCartney, Sting, U2 and REM. Philly has Jay-Z, Keith Urban and Rob Thomas.

Still, I was happy when they announced they were going to come to Philly. It's a nice way to have an echo of the past while you try to heal the present for the future.

I doubt I'll be down at the Ben Franklin Parkway on July 2, but I'll be there in spirit when I watch the whole thing on TV.

Weighty issues

2005-05-29T16:40:00.000-04:00

Congratulations go to Danica Patrick, the Indycar racer who finished fourth in today's Indy 500. While she wasn't the first woman to be in the race, she was the first ever to lead in the race and, had she not been hamstrung by a lack of fuel at the end, she could have won the whole thing.

But really I want to talk about sour grapes. NASCAR (and sometime Indycar) racer Michael Gordon says that Patrick has an unfair advantage, she only weighs 100 pounds.

Gordon, who weighs at least twice that says that her weight gives her more speed because her car is lighter and can get more mileage out of the gas. I say that Gordon is being a jerk. Patrick may have an advantage, but it's certainly not unfair. If she has an advantage, then maybe the other racing teams should jettison their more weighty drivers for those who are slimmer. I'm sure that more women would get a shot this way.

So don't let it get to you Danica. You're a great racer and you've earned your spot. Don't let sour grapes spoil your rookie season.

I know what funny is...

2005-05-26T14:00:00.000-04:00

William Donahue is the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. William Donahue is an asshole. He's the fella who fills up our airwaves with bluster every time the subject of priests diddling young boys comes up. He's also the guy you may have seen in orgasmic delight when Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope.

Most of the time though, he's busy trying (unsuccessfully) to ban movies and TV shows. He tried it a few years ago with Kevin Smith's film "Dogma". He wasn't a fan of "The Last Temptation of Christ", either.

In his role of defender of the faith (and we all know what happened to the last one), Donahue appeared Monday on an episode of Penn and Teller: Bullshit! on Showtime. The subject was "Holier Than Thou", an expose of three religious icons: the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The other two being heathens that Donahue is sure is burning in hell, he focused on Mother Teresa.

But soon after the show aired, Donahue was distraught. He'd been made to look bad when the show broadcast and parsed his own words. Now he's trying to let the stockholders of Viacom how angry he is by slipping leaflets under their hotel doors.

Donahue said, "Like most Americans, I like parodies and have no problem, per se, with irreverent humor. But when humor becomes insult, that is a different story."

So he doesn't mind parodies and irreverent humor, it's just that when it's not reverent that he has a problem. He loves reverent parodies and reverent irreverent humor. You know, the kinds of spoofs that just acknowledge how great the subject really was or is.

Like I said, he's an asshole.

The Muppets, okay?

2005-05-25T16:30:00.000-04:00

I watched and digested ABC's telemovie "The Muppets Wizard of Oz" on Friday. It wasn't really that good. I wanted it to be, but it really moved away from what makes the Muppets the Muppets. It had forgettable songs and way too "now" references that will serve to date the movie years from now.

That said, I liked the touches from the book, the silver shoes, the magical cap that controls the flying monkeys and the ol' cereal in the Scarecrow's brain trick. I also liked the characterization of Pepe, the king prawn, as Toto.

But I'm hoping that this underwhelming movie will not kill any plans Disney has for bringing the Muppets back. I wouldn't judge the viability of the Muppets franchise from one poorly written movie.

Please, Disney, bring back The Muppet Show!

"Lost" and Found

2005-05-23T21:45:00.000-04:00

I really don't see "Lost" on ABC being a long-term hit.

I know. I know. I've already posted about how I don't watch ABC, so how dare I say such a thing about such a popular show. Well, I think that the show just can't possible sustain interest past three seasons. It may even peter out next year, at the very least it will start to level out.

See, "Lost" is the kind of show that requires you to know about what happened before. In many ways, it's like "Twin Peaks". It's odd, it's quirky and you have to pay attention to even begin to understand just what the hell is going on.

I'm sure it had a great pilot. I know ABC wanted to pass, but it ultimately didn't. Still, I think "Lost" won the war in just beating the odds by getting on the air in the first place.

And don't get me started on "Desperate Housewives"...

CS Eyeballed

2005-05-21T21:10:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed the CSI season finale quite a bit. From the universal fear of being buried alive to being eaten by fire ants to people blowing up to Tony Curtis' rug, this episode had every scary thing I could possibly think of in one two-hour time slot.

Quentin Tarantino's fingerprints were all over the show, from the Greg/Hodges "Dukes of Hazzard" board game scene to the bizarre autopsy hallucination scene near the end, it had moments both silly and scary.

The end had me wondering, though. Will Ecklie give Gil his guys back? I guess we'll find out this fall.

Get Arrested

2005-05-20T19:20:00.000-04:00

Network upfronts are over and I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the results. Both Arrested Development and The Office USA were renewed and those were the two bubble shows I was pulling for the most.

If you haven't watched Arrested Development, I don't know what your problem is. It's probably the funniest show on the air and, while there's quite a lot of story that has passed since it began 2 years ago, it's very accessible due to the role of Ron Howard as narrator. He always lets you know what you need to know. The show does, though, reward attentive viewers for their loyalty with jokes they can only get, but even on its surface, it can easily be enjoyed.

The two actors I'd single out for their outstanding work on this show are Will Arnett and Michael Cera. Arnett plays GOB Bluth, the pompous but insecure eldest Bluth son. He's a very bad magician who always does his act to Europe's "The Final Countdown" The level of commitment he puts into the role is amazing. Michael Cera plays the teen son of GOB's brother. He's the consummate straight man. He won't get as many kudos as Arnett because he's the straight man, but he deserves every thumbs up. He's subtle where Arnett is bold. Each approach works for their characters.

So pick up the Arrested DVD for season 1 and when it comes back on Fox this summer in reruns. tune in. You'll be doing me a favor in helping keep this best comedy on TV on the air.

Sith Happens

2005-05-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'm one of the fools who is going to see "Revenge of the Sith" tonight at 12:01 AM. Technically it'll be my birthday, so I can choose to do anything I want. That just happens to be it. I'll be joining the hundreds of Star Wars freaks in line to see if III is the prequel that lives up to the promise of the first trilogy. I sure do hope so.

It's hard to judge by the trailers and the commercials because they were pretty good for episodes I and II. And, while neither were horrible movies, they just weren't what I wanted. Maybe it was because I'm 20 years older than I was when I first saw the flicks. Whatever it is, the newer ones just haven't made me sit in wonder like I did when I saw the original holy trilogy all these years ago.

You Say Quran, I Say Koran...

2005-05-17T15:20:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to make a judgment on the whole situation in this post, but I do find an aspect of the Newsweek/Koran flap interesting. The AP now spells it Quran which is much harder to pronounce if you're only looking at that. The spelling "koran", which I favor in English, is favored by the New York Times, the BBC and USA Today among others. I wonder what caused the AP to advocate the change in their style guide.

This reminds me a bit of the Moselm/Muslim shift that happened while I was in school. In grade school, the spelling in textbooks was Moslem. Once I reached high school, the spelling somehow became Muslim almost universally. No explanation. We were just expected to make the change.

Next time, I hope to be famous enough to get the memo on the next arabic word shift.

Peacock Front and Center

2005-05-16T18:35:00.000-04:00

NBC announced their fall lineup today in New York. The biggest two surprises were the shows that weren't on it: Law and Order:Trial By Jury and Scrubs.

TBJ was thought to be a lock by USA Today not a month ago, but apparently NBC decided they didn't want to pay the huge license fee to itself (Well, their production arm) to fund another season. Instead, they went with a shows about a fertility clinic called Inconceivable. You can look forward to that one with Ming Na this fall.

Scrubs was a big surprise. It's not cancelled, it's stuck on the midseason replacement bench. I guess I shouldn't be shocked, but I am. I thought they'd try to find it an audience on another night. They still might, depending on when they deploy it and what NBC comedy fails first.

The Apprentice is now on two nights a week. Wednesdays has the Martha Stewart version and Donny Trump is on at his regular slot on Thursdays (the third day). I don't know if this is such a good idea. I see Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-like fatigue already and there's only one series of Apprentice on the air now.

I can see the headline now: "NBC to Trump: 'You're fired!'"

Eyes on the Enterprise (SPOILERS)

2005-05-14T01:20:00.000-04:00

(The following contains spoilers for the final episode of "Star Trek Enterprise". If you haven't seen the final episode yet and wish to remain a virgin. Do not read any further. Thank you.)

I watched the final episode of Star Trek Enterprise tonight(missing the 8 o'clock penultimate installment) out of respect for Star Trek and out of curiousity. I felt the major happening in the episode was handled poorly. It was arbitrary and it didn't add anything to the episode or the series. I mean, it's mentioned matter-of-factly at the beginning of the episode by Troi, so there's no dramatic tension leading up to it, save for a fake out halfway through.

I mean, what was the death of Trip supposed to accomplish dramatically? No matter what it was, it didn't succeed, unless its purpose was to confuse and infuriate the audience.

And he died in a situation that they've been in and gotten out of before. I'm sure there's other ways to demonstrate how following your instinct is better than blindly following orders. Better he should sacrifice himself against orders to save the whole ship in engineering like Spock did in Star Trek II. Maybe Archer volunteers to save the ship, but Trip knocks him out so he can do it or something. That would have had more resonance.

But it doesn't seem that his death meant much. Other than the scene with Archer and T'Pol talking about what Trip would have wanted after he died, he was forgotten and never mentioned again. In fact, it's business as usual a day or two later when Archer is set to speak at the conference. All the Enterprise personnel are in the VIP section and all they do is cheerfully talk about their next assignment or complain about how far away they are from the podium. What the hell? At least Tasha Yar had a funeral!

If I didn't know any better I'd swear they just came up with the death subplot one day over lunch when the actor who played Trip asked if he could wrap for the series early so he could make it to shoot for a new pilot. It seems that poorly thought out and executed. No wonder Jolene Blalock called the finale "appalling".

I'd not go so far as to say that, but the whole thing really shows just how little the network cared for the series at the end. They could have made a two-hour telemovie event. Instead, all you have is two separate episodes stranded alone on a Friday night masquerading as a grand sendoff. Watching this episode, I see promise, which is sad, because the show is no more...but I also see an idea that was too big for its timeslot and one that could have used more time to breathe...in airtime and writing time.

I don't ABC the big deal...

2005-05-12T21:15:00.000-04:00

The only network I don't watch anything on is ABC. Yeah, I know it's the home to Alias, Desperate Housewives, Lost and Grey's Anatomy, but none of those shows ever really appealed to me. All the successful shows on the network require you to pay a lot of attention. I usually don't dig those shows until and unless they hit DVD. ABC doesn't have a CSI or a Law and Order that can let you hop in and out of the show with little or no consequence.

You'd think it'd be a no-brainer for the network, but this is the channel that didn't even want to make "Lost" in the first place and that passed on Survivor, The Apprentice and CSI. In fact, they owned CSI at one point, only to sell it to Alliance Atlantis once it moved on to CBS.

I'm not arguing with the success that have had, but I'm almost positive that the success of the shows that are booming for the network now aren't for the long-run. Alias is falling-off and Jennifer Garner is soon off to become a mom and movie star. Lost is the kind of Twin Peaksian show that booms quickly but then gets bogged down in its own confusing mythology. Desperate Housewives can only last so long before one hausfrau kills another. So it would make sense for the powers that be to come up with a possible ol' faithful.

And then maybe I could tune into their channel, if only for an hour a week.

E!normous Blunder

2005-05-11T11:55:00.000-04:00

I was watching a rerun of SNL on E! this weekend and anchorbabe Giuliana came on the screen to tell me the breaking news just into the E! News Room...yes, Jennifer Garner is now confirmed to have been knocked up by Ben Affleck.

Oh, there's few things worse than making me look at garbage. Tasting it is one of them. Thanks a lot, E!!.

Hijacked Idol

2005-05-09T21:45:00.000-04:00

I'll admit to watching "American Idol" from time to time. I miss it on occasion but there's really not that much on opposite it.

One fan of the show has decided to make it a bit more interesting. He's launched a website called VoteFortheWorst.com that attempts to elevate the worst singer in the competition to the title of American Idol. He feels it's rigged so only those the producers feel are commercial advance to the finals. VoteFortheWorst had initially supported the nasally Mikalah Gordon until even she was too annoying to keep. Then they were behind the porcine Scott Savol until he was jettisoned last week.

Not to say it hasn't been moderately successful, though. Savol outlasted the far more popular faux-rocker Constantine Maroulis and Mikalah did last a few weeks.

They're calling for people of conscience to vote for Anthony Federov and his tracheotomy scar this week. I will...as long as he doesn't violate my one rule. He can't indicate the telephone number to call with his fingers to the audience. I mean, c'mon...how cheesy is that, man?

Don't Let's Start

2005-05-08T23:00:00.000-04:00

You know, it's a tough thing getting a blog started. You have all these great ideas in your head and then you realize that, due to the sheer size of the internet, there's probably 100 million people just like you who not only have thought the same thing as you, but have already posted about it in a far more entertaining way.

But I can't worry myself about these people. For all I know, they're all friendless weasels who do nothing but watch television all day and play computer games. So, who cares what they think? Okay, I'm not much better than that, but I'm going forward with this crap anyway. Just try and stop me.

I haven't really come up with a style for my blog just yet, so if you notice things being moved around and logos being created (poorly), don't be alarmed. It's just stuff I should have done before I wrote this in the first place.

Mission Statement

2005-05-08T22:00:00.000-04:00

For the first post of this blog, I just wanted to give a basic overview of what to expect here.

First, this is not a daily blog of things that go on in my life. I'm aiming to write for more of an audience than people who know me. I love the people who know me...except for those who think they know me and really don't Those people I hate. You know who you are.

This is a blog where I will post my thoughts on the news, the media and the women who love them. I hope to do so in a semi-entertaining style. You let me know how I'm doing. Or let me know by not letting me know. It's up to you, really.