February 6, 2022
Regrettably, we've fallen behind here at CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS. A common re-occurrence, I suppose a recap is whys and wherefores of our slow start to 2022 is not why you are checking in - I can hear my one reader out there shouting, "Just get to the damn show!" Well, these oftentimes confessional introductory paragraphs are not required reading, so feel free to skip to the power rankings if you wish - they are clearly labelled below.
But in case you are wondering what has been distracting me the non-obligation of pushing these posts out in a timely fashion, I give you the following list:
- The Cincinnati Bengals highly unlikely Super Bowl run. Not an excuse for this week, I know...
- Tennis. The Australian Open ended last week so you don't have to listen to me on that unless I decide to circle back to complete my unfinished "Requiem for Jennifer Brady's Foot."
- Back injury. So I somehow aggravated my back taking a shower of all things a few weeks ago. (Behold, the ravages of age!) After the spasms subsided, I thought I was almost back to normal when the big winter storm that swept across the Midwest last week dropped several inches of ice and snow in southwest Ohio. I foolishly thought, "My back is fine. I can clear my driveway and sidewalks..." Famous last words. Back on muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatory NSAIDs to stave off the painful effects of lower back spasms, I was once again fatigued and groggy by about 8 PM. Given the choice between writing up another wonderful episode of Sunday Morning and watching TV, I selfishly chose TV. Of course it did not help that...
- The Winter Olympics are on. I will write more on this later.
- Faith Salie has gotten me addicted to Wordle. It's only five minutes a day, but still.
- I got sucked into watching Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back documentary which clocks in at a mere 8 hours. Let's spend a short time discussing this further.
The Problem With Paul
Like so many people since 1963, the first band I fell in love with was The Beatles. For reasons that would require an another blog posts, I did not purchase music on CDs until at least 1995. I was convinced that cassette tapes where the superior format. On cassette, I still own The Beatles 20 Greatest Hits and the double album The Beatles 1967-1970, or simply "The Blue Album" until Weezer laid claim to it. ("The Red Album" covered 1962-1966.) As you can tell, as a tween, when I wanted music, I wanted the hits. Once my musical palette started to expand, I started to appreciate the deep cut and a coherent aesthetic and thus abandon greatest hits collections for standard album releases. Most most of my early CD purchases were Beatles albums from Rubber Soul onward. I don't listen to The Beatles nearly as much these days, but there's always a special place in my heart for them. And the completionist in me recognizes I'm missing a lot of great music.
The first big Beatles retrospective was The Beatles Anthology which I believe aired on ABC. There were 2 accompanying albums because it seems everything with the Beatles had to be divided in to "Early Beatles" and "After Sgt. Pepper". I think the Anthology inspired my sister and I watch all the old Beatles movies, checking them out on VHS tapes from the library. I know that A Hard Days Night is the definitive Beatles movie, but Help!* has all the best lines. My sister and I still pull out random movie quotes in conversation. Our favorite is "Jeweler, you've failed!" (If your a fan of Mr. Tony, you may be familiar with, "Be-atle, come to the window...") Here's a particular scene that always makes me laugh:
*Much is made about how disinterested The Beatles were in making Help! and were only doing it out a contractual obligation, but to me the fact they are phoning it in only seems to heighten the madcap ridiculousness of the movie.
Since I'm riffing on the movies, we were also fond of imitating the creepy grin John Lennon maintains throughout "You're Mother Should Know" in Magical Mystery Tour.
Again, I swerved way off topic from where I started, which was to give a couple thoughts I had on Get Back.
First, the restored footage looks fantastic. I guess it was edited together to give a fair and accurate snapshot of the late era Beatles, but as is my complaint with most things these days, it could have been shorter, although the narrative aspect surely suffered in my viewing experience due the fact I could hardly stay awake due to the medication I was on for my back pain. I haven't actually watched the miniseries A Very English Scandal (but I've heard good things...), but an alternate title for Get Back could have been A Very English Behind the Music. It's not so much constant smoking that I found jarring as it was the fact that they all seem to have a glass of beer or wine during rehearsals. Since it's hard to tell what time of day things are taking place, it often seems like it could be morning or early afternoon. While I'm sure they were all high to various degrees throughout, they were proper enough to keep that out of the view of the camera, so what we're left with is a lot of passive aggression.
It is sort of magical to see the song writing process take place, especially "Get Back", but to me things only really take flight once Billy Preston shows up and again for the concert itself. (Those poor cops!)
As a Paul guy, the other thing that jumped out to me was how much Paul was grating on John and George at that point. (Ringo seems to float above it all. Perhaps he had the 10,000 foot view after his blow up during the White Album and understood the band's days were numbered and just wanted to enjoy the rest of the ride. Also, everyone just seems to get along with Ringo, probably because they didn't have to fight him for the spotlight.) Perhaps John took bigger swings, but when he missed, they could be a self-indulgent mess. For awhile I was a John guy - Tomorrow Never Knows is probably my favorite Beatles song, self indulgent as it is. But I have his solo career greatest hits, Lennon Legend and I find I just don't enjoy it. Paul tended to write about smaller more intimate things. He could turn them into rockers or epic ballads or a quiet melody. Paul was consistent. You're going to throw "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" at me as a counterargument, but I will remain steadfast in my defense.
Paul also seemed to hold the moral high ground. Of all the Beatles, only Paul's Wikipedia page lacks the phrase "frequent infidelities". Not that I'm going to condemn the worlds biggest rock stars in their twenties for acting like rock stars in their twenties, but John's overall treatment of women is at the very least problematic. After Brian Epstein's death, the Beatles lacked something of a guiding hand, something Paul verbalizes on film. You can see him trying to step into that role (The idea for the "Get Back" project was his in the first place.) to provide some sort of direction and the rest of the band bristling at it. George in particular complains that Paul ruined him as a guitarist for always having to play the way Paul wants him to play, lamenting that he cannot play the way Eric Clapton can. In the end, the rest of the band follow John's lead against Paul and made Allen Klein their new manager. Part of me guesses that was partly to spite Paul. The fact that Paul was right in the end was a Pyrrhic victory as Paul's seeming lack of generosity towards his other band mates, his unwillingness to evolve and let George be something more than the little brother is what is widely held to be the main cause of their breakup. Some people blame Yoko, and there are some gripes that she is always around from Paul, who promptly strikes back by bringing Linda to the sessions, but do not blame the significant others.
Some of the praise for Get Back has centered on how it reframes the late stage Beatles. That they weren't constantly bickering and at each others throats. That it shows the love they really had for each other. And you can see how much they dig listening to what they have created in the recording studio. And you wonder if there was a way for them to continue on, doing their solo stuff and then coming back together every once in awhile to be The Beatles. But you can also see how untenable it was. Even when they recorded in the 90's for the Anthology, George still couldn't stand recording with Paul.
So, while I'll say that I liked Get Back and it is a worthwhile watch for any Beatles fan, what I took from it was not a new notion, but one I hadn't pondered deeply because, "It's all about the music, man."
Was Paul, my favorite Beatle, the bad guy?
Oh, I do tend to go on way too long.
The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS
What a great episode this was. I know I said this same thing just two shows ago, but any of five or six segments could have been a number one in any other week. Let's dive in.
1) Jane Pauley
Before I begin, I acknowledge that I should stop wading into territory of appearance and wardrobe because it almost always seems to focus on women. Although in my defense, I've brought up wardrobe and/or hair style in the past of Mo Rocca, Conor Knighton, and Lee Cowan. So I'm sort of equal opportunity... maybe... I hope.
But this jacket:
Somebody should write a song about that jacket. Oh, someone already has?
(If you think that's the last Venture Bros. reference this week, you are sadly mistaken.)
Jane also presented a short "Milepost" segment about the US's WWII inflatable "Ghost Army" and who doesn't enjoy a little "Greatest Generation" era history lesson.
But the real reason Jane Pauley is the committee's unanimous #1 is...
SUNDAY ALMANAC IS BACK!
Yes, I know that they used it as a way to shoehorn in an acknowledgment the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II ascending to the thrown. But beggars can't be choosers, am I right? They gave the people what they want.
I find the British monarchy to be confounding. Other countries still have nominal monarchs and royalty, but none play such an outsize role in the culture/national identity that they do in England. I'm just saying they spend an incredible amount of money maintaining palaces and residences for a group of people with no qualifications other than DNA. And let's not look too closely at that DNA. (Yes, it's a joke about how royals used to marry their cousins.)
I don't know why they get the press they do in the United States, but if people want to get wrapped up in the pomp and circumstance and mythology of royals, whatever floats your boat.
With those caveats, and the caveats that I'm not British and am not qualified to speak to the geopolitics and whether or not the monarchy is viewed as a link to the Britain's problematic colonialist past and various other historically troublesome areas (not that I could criticize, let he who is without sin...), I think she's probably about as good a queen as England could have hoped for. Or am I just falling for the PR?
Martha has found orb?
There we go, I think I've got the Ventures out of my system for now. This was just a great Martha segment. A surefire #1 if it had not been for the return of Almanac.
Martha joins "orbivores" hunting for hand blown glass orbs hidden around Block Island, Rhode Island.
First, this was obviously filmed in summer of 2021. It's nice to take an evergreen story about a summer treasure hunt and air it in the middle of winter to give everyone something to look forward to. In other words:
Second, I once went to a glass blowing studio when I spent a summer on the campus of Centre College in Danville, KY. I find blown glass mesmerizing. And the special orbs are one of a kind works works of art.
Third, this was actually the art segment of the week. I say, how whimsical! There is little in this world that a little whimsy cannot improve. Cincinnati was once decorated with pig status. Louisville, horses. Every city has their public art projects to bring a little whimsical cheer. The sheer randomness of Block Island's orbs gives me reason to believe that everything is going to be OK, because somehow the universe conspired to come up with a New England orb hunt.
Finally, watfching Martha find an orb of her own... if it was a setup, I don't want to know. Let me believe that magic exists.
3) Rita Braver
Rita is the latest Sunday Morning corresponding to discover the Simpson hack:
This was this week's "cover story" - the first segment - and once the Simpsons clip was tossed in, I was convinced no one else could rival Rita for #1. Oh, how I was mistaken.
Russia's about to invade Ukraine, our country seems hopelessly divided, and I'm sure I'm contributing to climate change as much as anyone else, but all is right with the world if Sunday Morning is going to run out an episode tackling orbs, left handedness, and whistling (see below).
I grew up playing baseball with a left handed older brother so I always wanted to be left handed, partly out of hero worshiping my brother, and partly out of hero worshiping untold number of professional baseball players.
I'm just going to make up a stat here, but I think your chances of making it as a professional baseball player are something like three times more likely if you are left handed. It's a crude estimation based on the fact that 1 in 10 people are left handed, but something like 1 in 3 baseball players hit or throw left handed. Teams try to avoid a lineup that has multiple batters that hit from the same side in a row to avoid giving the opposing team an obvious pitching platoon advantage. Some players are ambidextrous or were taught to hit or throw left handed at a young age for the sporting advantage despite being a less interesting righty in all else (A la Toni Nadal putting a racquet in Rafa's left hand. The rest is history.) I tried to teach myself to hit left handed, but to no avail.
Although there's this weird thing where swinging a baseball bat right handed is equivalent to a left handed tennis player's two handed backhand. So for many years as a kid, I actually played by hitting a backhand from both sides because I didn't know any better. Maybe the fact that I could never learn a left handed swing is why backhand sucks to this day.
For whatever reason, journalists love talking to Sean Doolitte, AKA the Beltway Mitterrend, who makes a appearance because who could be more charismatic than a middling relief pitcher?
4) Lee Cowan
Some people can't whistle. Tony Kornheiser. A certain person who I'm reticent to give details about, but probably knows who they are if they were to read this based on the oblique way I just tried to mention them without mentioning them.
I can whistle. I think I'm a pretty good whistler. Not professional musician level whistler, but a pretty OK for an average whistler. I think I'm slightly better than Lee, but I can't hit the super high notes that Molly Lewis can effortlessly hit. I can do The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly theme, but maybe have to shift it down a couple of keys to get it in my range.
The point is I can whistle a tune. Whenever I hear someone else whistle a song, I instinctively also try to whistle it too. My whistling does not have the fidelity of Molly's - I'm sure it's very pitchy - but you could probably pick out what song I'm whistling which is, you know, not something that everyone can do even if they can whistle. I'm mildly proud of this ability, but am sort of in awe of Molly.
I wonder if it's just practice to strengthen the facial muscles have the requisite tongue control to whistle the way Molly does or if it there is something about the shape of her mouth or sinus cavity or something that gives her her special ability. Not that I'm asking science to figure this one out. Just wondering. I'm fine to live with the wonder and the whimsy of it all.
Also, I just spent about 10 minutes trying to remember/look up who the official whistler of The Tony Kornheiser Show is. If you know, leave a comment or send me a message on Twitter. It sort of bothers me that I can't remember, but it won't tomorrow, so whatever. I know he's won competitions. But how many albums has he put out?
5) Iguanas, Howard Hessman (tie)
I wonder if they decided to feature the iguanas of Curaçao for the nature segment because of the recent story about iguanas falling from trees in Florida? If you watch any of the late night shows, I think every one did a joke about it. Leave it to Sunday Morning to take the high road and feature ambulatory iguanas.
WKRP in Cincinnati was well before my time. I was a little young for Head of the Class, but I vaguely remember some reruns airing in syndication. I'm pretty sure my brother was a fan but I couldn't tell you much about the show other than Howard Hessman played a teacher. Being from the greater Cincinnati area, watching some WKRP at some point is almost mandatory. Here's to all those who shared in the good times watching Dr. Johnny Fever.
It's a shame I could not and likely never will see the show with it's original music.
6) Faith Salie
In another example of a piece that was obviously filmed last summer and held until the following February, possibly for reasons relating to Black History Month, Faith brings us the story of Seneca Village.
It was created by Black people for Black people to escape the indignities they had to endure living among white communities in New York City in the 19th century. The land was later taken from them via eminent domain when rich white people wanted to create Central Park. Ugh. Can't we have anything nice without it being connected to something awful?
I like learning bits about history. (I like learning in general which is why Sunday Morning is great. It's like an unironic Schoolhouse Rock for adults.) If you like history, I'd encourage you watch the segment. It has a very Finding Your Roots vibe to it as they try to track down the descendants of those who lived there, which happens to be another one of my favorite nonfiction shows.
Also, as someone with a near complete inability to grow facial hair, I find a well groomed unironic mustache to be a delight, which make Cal Jones a hero to me.
7) Mo Rocca
There's a Mr. Burns line from The Simpsons about the sex appeal of scantily clad women in modern movies:
Vilma Banky could do more for me with one raised eyebrow than an entire...
Peggy Lee's minimalist style does more for me with a single finger snap than any slickly produced modern music video. From now on, I choose to believe the origins of the modern exclamation, "Oh, snap!" have its roots in Peggy Lee.
Mo, the resident pop culture (1950s-1980s) correspondent/presidential historian, analyzes old footage where she hardly moves while singing, fixing her gaze someone or something, holding it and refusing to release it. The slightest movement indicative of the deepest yearning emotion.
For what it's worth, due to the similarity in names, I get Peggy Lee and Brenda Lee mixed up sometimes. But not Derrek Lee and David Lee. It probably helps that they are of my generation though. And also that David Lee married grand slam champ Caroline Wozniacki.
I did make it out to see Licorice Pizza. I thought I had put up a couple thoughts on it, but maybe I haven't. It's a good movie. Maybe very good movie. I smiled through most of it and Bradley Cooper steals the 10 minutes he's in it. (He plays a much bigger part in the trailer than he does in the movie.) It's not my favorite PTA movie, but that's a damn high bar to clear. It's one of his most fun and most funny movies for sure. If this were higher on the list, I'd run down the committee's PTA movie power rankings, but maybe another time.
Alana Haim is very good in Licorice Pizza. Maybe not Oscar buzz good, but there are a few scenes which made me think that it's not so far off. I don't think it's awards bait movie though.
I'm pretty sure there's not a single scene in the movie where she is wearing a bra, which is, I suppose, accurate to 1970s San Bernadino recreated. Maybe it's sexist or uncouth to point it out, but you know how sometimes it's hard to just not notice something. I suppose it's just part of the period costume the way wearing a corset in a movie that takes place in the 19th century would be.
I've listened to a little HAIM and seen them perform on SNL. It's good stuff. If I were 10-15 years younger, I probably would own Women in Music Pt. III and have more opinions. The song of theirs I know the best is "The Wire", which from the previous album. I don't know their music well enough to always recognize a song of their when I hear it, but my general reaction when I do hear one of their songs is, "Oh, this is HAIM. I think I like HAIM." Which makes me think I should know their music better, but one person can only cover so much ground in a lifetime, eh?
Until I watched this segment, I did not realize the actor who played Gary was Philip Seymour Hoffman's son. When it was pointed out, I about smacked myself in the head. How did I not see that?
9) Seth Doane
Seth sends back another postcard from Italy. This time he focuses on a old (aren't they all) village in Tuscany, Galliano di Mugello that does not have cell phone service. While a lack of connectivity may sound like a respite from the constantly on and screen focused world, unless you'd like to permanently embrace your inner transcendentalist, there are decided drawbacks. A student has to walk to a hill on the outskirts of town to do schoolwork. A woman running a hotel can't call the police during a burglary because she can't get to the landline without alerting the intruders.
I'm not sure how long I could go without cell or internet access. Assuming I did not need it for work... a week? I don't know how I'd communicate with friends and family.
Also, Seth jokes with the mayor about Italian stereotypes.
10) Luke Burbank
I'd like to see more Luke Burbank commentary segments. I highly appreciate his dry sense of humor. But only we can still get segments where he interviews Kirsten Dunst and slyly cracks jokes about Jane Campion. As funny as I thought his work from bed bit was, it was a stacked, stacked episode, so even a good commentary can only break in at bottom.
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