June 27, 2021
There is a saying that fans of The Tony Kornheiser Show (AKA littles) will recognize that goes, "But what about your Thursday show?" The quote is attributable to Satchmo himself - a nickname Dr. Porthouser gave himself, despite Louis Armstrong already laying claim to said nickname, breaking all nickname rules known to God and Man. The nickname I'm most likely to answer to is Pillard. The origin of this nickname is so random, it in no way comprises my online anonymity except to those that knew me once upon a time. I doubt they will read this blog.
Anyway, the HOF/WOF's saying is a rebuttal to those who think could do his job and host a radio show. The meaning is that while a Sunday football game may give you fodder to fill a Monday and maybe a some of a Tuesday show, the natural ebbs flows of a weekly news cycle (at least in the pre-Trump era) generally slows to a trickle as the week goes on. To fill a show, you have to be good at vamping and finding material beyond the obvious. Tony Kornheiser is actually pretty good at turning the minutiae and mundane aspects of his life into an entertaining theater of the absurd. Occasionally, the "news fairies" will sprinkle something in mid-week, but you're just as likely to get a story about an ill-fated trip to The Container Store.
Welcome to the Thursday show. Five months in to doing this recap blog, winter changed into spring and now summer. Currently, I'm more interested in ill-advsidedly riding a bike 75 miles (*humble brag alert*) while underestimating the amount of nutrition and water I needed on a bit of a scorcher. (In fairness to me, 10 of those miles were unanticipated due to road/trail detours. Summer construction season!) Anyway, for at least a little bit, these recaps are probably going to turn more in to quick hits. Having said that I fully reserve the right to revert to my natural state as an overly verbose gasbag should the mood strike me. I am fully ready for Sunday Morning to start its semi summer vacation and reair one or two old segments a week. Alas, so far they have steadfastly refused and continue to generate new content weekly. In the near future, I got 4th of July parties, summer vacations, and just general catch up to do now that quarantine is generally over. So the recap is no longer an outlet that can fill an empty Sunday or Monday evening as I am actually pretty busy otherwise, but it still serves the purpose exercising my somewhat atrophied writing skills. I'm sure in 5 months when we're starting to go back indoors again. Before getting to the power rankings...
SPORTS QUICK HITS
Baseball: I went to a Reds game last week for the first time since 2019. Happily, the Reds won to go one game over .500. The Reds are a thoroughly average team, so I made the bold claim that the Reds would wholeheartedly embrace mediocrity and go no more than 2 games over or under .500 for the rest of the season. A week later that delta from .500 hasn't gone over 1. Prove me wrong kids. Prove me wrong. They were winning when I started to write, but then their woeful bullpen gave up a grand slam, so I switched to watching...
Basketball: The NBA playoffs have been delightfully weird for once. The final four consists of 2 never haves (Clippers and Suns) and 2 almost nevers (Bucks and Hawks). For the most predictable league on planet earth, it is a shame the chaos is mostly due to injury attrition after 2 pandemic affected seasons and not some kind of parity. I guess I'm rooting for the Hawks (*shrug*) as the maximum chaos pick and because it would reignite the ridiculous Luca Doncic vs. Trae Young draft debate. I'm kind of sad the Clippers beat the Jazz. As a child who grew up as a short, white point guard, John Stockton is still a hero.
Association Football: The Euros! I don't actually care that much about the Euros. I usually for a team who has pedigree to win, but hasn't won before. I get to have a decent shot of both pulling for a winner while also rooting for the underdog. The past few international tournaments Belgium has fit that bill. Previously, it was Portugal, but they committed two sins. The venial sin is that up until Euro 2016, they always seemed to underperform relative to their talent. The mortal sin was that in 2016, they won despite winning only one game in regulation, THE WHOLE TOURNAMENT! Against Wales! Wales dammit! Against Wales in the semifinals! They essentially got to the knockout round by the thinnest of margins and only because the tournament expanded from 16 to 24 teams and then won a series of coin flips. Even the fluke Greek team that won in 2004 had the gumption to win 3 whole games in regulation, although 2 were against Portugal. Go Belgium?
Tennis: Wimbledon started. Too early to say much except everyone is slipping and generally just trying not to get injured. Such conditions favor the young (Coco Gauff) and flexible (Novak Djokovic). Meanwhile, Wimbledon's reaction to everyone tumbling and multiple showcase matches ending in injury retirements is a collective shrug and clinging to tradition more tightly than Rebbe Tevye in Fiddler On the Roof.
I'm big fan of Big Foe (Frances Tiafoe). Wayne Ferreira has him attacking the net as much as possible and his play is straight fire so far. He also wore an awesome Arthur Ashe T-shirt at press. He took out the male Greek in the first round. (The fate of the female Greek is tenuous as she down a set in a darkness suspended 2nd round match at the moment.) Who knows how Foe'll keep it up?
I hope this isn't racist, but Wimbledon also highlights how much better Black people look in white than the Whites. I'll make some picks next week.
To those of you who don't care at all about the above, have I got a music video for you. I present the snide humor of Swedish punk group, Viagra Boys:
CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS
1) Lee Cowan
When I was at grad school, there was a Frank Lloyd Wright house literally across the street from where I did bulk of my dissertation work. I regret never taking the time to check it out. There are three in Cincinnati. Boulter, Tonkens, and Boswell. I've never been to them either, but I'm not across the street. Boswell is not so far from where I live, but it is in a ridiculously toney Village of Indian Hill - I'm generally anti pointless wealth. (Bike through at your own risk. Failure to come to a complete stop will result in a traffic ticket.)
Speaking of grad school, I went to a physics conference at Monona Terrace in Madison, which is a FLW design. It is a spectacular facility, but it brings back some not great memories, so lets move on.
The following screengrab of the man responsible for restoring FLW houses has not been doctored. Make of it what you will:
Did you really think CBS was going to run a Rita Braven segment on Seth Meyers last week and not demand that Colbert get equal time. I like Colbert a lot too. As I said, Colbert and Meyers are what I put on when I am cooking or doing my core strengthening exercises. (My back may not get better, but by God, I can try keep it from getting worse.)
Colbert's not going to get a full breakdown like I did with Meyers. During the Meyers recap last week, I mentioned how surprised I was to realize how much a live audience makes for a taped broadcast. I do kind of miss some of early bits from the show that were later dropped. It tried to be more cerebral, inviting archaeologists, scientists, and other niche guests, seemingly not because they were famous, but because Colbert wanted to do something a little different. However, after maybe struggling in the pre-Trump era, the show got retooled and left field guests/segments kind of got chucked out as the show got homogenized.
This isn't Dickerson's first Sunday Morning segment, but it is his first as a regular. I couldn't be happier. A more pleasant man, you will not find. His demeanor is a perfect fit for Sunday Morning. It's also nice and predictable that Dickerson and Colbert are friends. Although, that friendship did once lead to Colbert maybe going over a line when Trump treated Dickerson shabbily. If that had happened a two, three, or four years later, would Colbert have been "cancelled" more vigorously? (I hate that word...) Would Republicans defend his right to free speech?
Anyway, I though the way he addressed it later was spot on. As a general rule, comedians should probably offend someone every now again. Comedy has sort of a social contract. Some people might be offended, but life will go on.
First timer Hua Hsu's segment is essentially a promo for Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson's new documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, Summer of Soul. It's a good segment. I haven't seen the film, so I can't say if the segment provides anything I wouldn't get from the film, but it makes me want to see the film, so it does its job. From the footage of the acts performing, the music sounds incredible. It's always fun to revisit the 5th Dimension even after Nancy Giles covered them just a few weeks ago. Footage of a young Stevie Wonder wailing on the drums is amazing. I honestly never knew he played other instruments besides piano/keyboard. David Ruffin looks nothing but cool while hitting the high notes while wearing a wool tuxedo in 90 degree heat. Sly and the Family Stone played both the real Woodstock and the "Black Woodstock".
I honestly would watch this movie just for the Family. This is going to sound very white, but ever since I heard the Beastie Boys sample (or completely lift) "Loose Booty" on the track "Shadrach" from Paul's Boutique, I went down the rabbit hole and discovered so many classic tracks permeating pop culture go back to Sly Stone. Maybe it's because Sly and the Family Stone's music does not neatly fit into standard classic rock or oldie radio formats, but I have come to believe that the band is one of the most overlooked in the history of pop music. This probably happened to a lot of Black funk acts of the era. The demise of radio means I can't just find a station or a show playing the music to find out more about it. But I've got the movie to look forward to at least. If anyone has a good Sly and the Family Stone inspired playlist/mix they'd like to pass along, I'd love to listen to it. Being from Cincinnati, I should probably know be more familiar with P-Funk due to the Bootsy Collins connection, but alas, I'm not sure I know a single song.
4) Luke Burbank
This is an important story. For whatever reason, important stories tend not to rank highly when considered by the power rankings committee, but we've bumped Luke into the top five because we're all a little shocked that Luke hasn't come in at #1 yet. I'm not sure why, but almost every Luke Burbank story is related to food somehow.
The economics of food and farming seem unsustainable. I was raised by a righteous coupon clipper, so the idea of paying more money for things was, and sort of still is, anathema, but we probably need to be paying more for food. Lets skip the debate about the backbone of restaurants and agricultural work falling on undocumented immigrants. Lets skip the debate about a labor shortage because Americans have collectively decided they don't want to do certain jobs. Lets skip the debate about whether taking away unemployment benefits will solve that problem. In the end, to provide laborers documented or undocumented with the dignity of a livable wage for back breaking work is that we are all probably going to have start paying more for food.
I'm no economist, see. The free marketers will say the workers are getting paid what the market will bear and if that's not a living wage, well that's capitalism. Just don't tell me there is some sort of moral imperative to all this while trying to kick very people that we need to provide food for all of us to eat out of the country.
5) Jaws, Herb Tarlek (tie)
Frank Bonner, who played Herb Tarlek in WKRP in Cincinnati, passed away. The show's run ended before I was born, but it will always hold a special place for most people from my hometown. Cincinnati has a general inferiority complex and WKRP was one cultural touchstone that occasionally alleviates that feeling. I'm not to make some wild claims about its great importance or artistic merit, but it was a good show up until the Who concert.
It holds a special place for me for other reasons that maybe I'll cover another day. It suffered in syndication/DVD because the tunes got edited out for licensing reasons. I hear if you find old VHS copies though, the music is intact. I can't verify that. RIP Herb.
On sharks:
Sharks don't sleep and I don't take my eyes off you
CBS Sunday Morning has been profiling a bunch of famous attorney's recently. This week they add notable conservative attorney Ted Olson to their collection. First off, yes, his (4th) wife's name really is Lady, which is a bold move on someone's part.
The point of the story, I guess is that, in general, we place too much emphasis on the conservative and liberal labels and that if we deal with people as people instead of our perceived labels, that we can overcome them, get along, and maybe even get married occasionally. But this has been James Carville's and Mary Matalin's turf since 1993. So while this is nothing new, perhaps it is sadly forgotten.
Or maybe the point is that people don't always fit into a box, i.e. a conservative lawyer can fight for the rights of Dreamers. Some people on the right (who'd I label extremists) would accuse someone who doesn't line up on all issues as a traitor. But maybe the point is that you should at least talk to Ted Olson (or anyone) before passing judgement one way or the other.
Or maybe the point is just that Mo wanted to have fun with a courtroom sketch motif. Well, I can't argue with that:
Jane's the host. She should probably always make the list unless she has the week off. I forgot to put her on it last week, but she was #1 2 weeks ago, so it all kind of works out on balance.
I'm always saying I'm going to dive into the ranking the hosts, but I've decided I'm going to doing this in a gradual way. Much like the Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday Morning has had only three different people steering the ship since the 70's. I guess that makes Jane Pauley the Mike Tomlin of morning TV infotainment. For now, I'll just say that I'm pretty sure Jane would be my #2 pick among the three hosts.
Steve's heartwarming segment this week is about chart boat captains reunited with the girl they saved from drowning in the Pacific Ocean after her boat capsized in between Catalina Island and the mainland. It's a bit darker than the normal Hartman story because Desiree Rodriguez's parents, sister, aunt and uncle, did not survive when the boat sank. She survived but lost her family. For a time, I was fixated on that trauma. Even as a 9 year old, the survivors guilt over the years must have been excruciating. I hope she continues to do well. But, it's Hartman story, so the focus is on the captains being reunited with the child they saved over thirty years later. That part'll make you smile, but you might cry along the way.
Mark Strassmann is not a Sunday Morning contributor, but is covering the building collapse in Surfside, FL for CBS. It is very sad. I can't imagine the pain the victims and their friends and family have gone through. Despite leading the news for the last week, I feel like this story is being getting the attention other comparable events would. The loss of human life will end up being equivalent to a crash of a large plane. The survivors who didn't live in the collapsed wing are essentially homeless now. Those that did live in the collapsed wing but happened to not be there would have lost friends and most, if not all, of their personal possessions.
10) Martha Teichner
I really don't want to Teichnerize Holly Williams (and Holly Williams's accent) but I'm just done with any more stories about the royals. I just don't care. It's a family matter that I probably shouldn't comment on, but it sure kind of seems like the rest of the royals have chosen the institution over Harry and Meghan. I'm a little baffled that public opinion is strongly aligned with the royals against Harry and Meghan. (Although, some hope, not among young adults...)
If you're on the side of Piers Morgan, maybe reevaluate some life decisions you've made.
* * *
I guess I failed in my quest to keep it short. Live to fight another day I guess.
Comments
Post a Comment