But Mr. Pryor doesn't know YOU…

Richard Pryor is on an odd personal list of performers whom I like or admire, but I don't possess a single copy of their work. There are many reasons why I haven't bought a Pryor album. At first, it was because I just didn't enjoy hearing the kind of language he used on his routine (that's, there's little prude hidden beneath my Rabelaisian exterior). Then, when I was in college and playing novelty records on the radio, it's for sure I couldn't play any of his records on the air. By that point, Pryor had gone on to movies and concert films, and the last era for comedy albums had passed.

I liked Pryor in the movies I saw of him, realizing that, of course, he had just a poorly written character in "Superman III." But I knew that wasn't what he was famous for. Sometimes I'd catch one of his live standup movies on TV, but always on a basic cable channel where it'd be heavily censored.

Yet I was pretty well aware of his role in the history of comedy and to American culture.

Go figure.

(And here's a bit of trivia I learned from Mel Brooks' commentary on the "Blazing Saddles" DVD: It's well-known that Brooks wanted Pryor for the lead in the movie, but the studio balked because Pryor was a controversial figure. So Brooks had him co-write the script with him instead. According to Mel, Pryor wrote the funny bits for Mongo and other white chracters, while Brooks wrote most of the black characters, and the result is as you see on the screen.)

Another performer I admire but don't collect would be Willie Nelson. At first because I simply didn't like his chosen genre. Now it would be because I simply don't know how to jump in. Buy all the original albums or be satisfied with greatest-hits collections. And you'll notice nowadays that most veteran musical performers' greatest hits can be had in the form of one CD, 2 CDs, or a four CD box set. Then they come out with a new box set with a DVD included. It gives me a headache. Just when when I finally started buying Dylan on CD, and then they finally released remastered versions of the albums I'd just bought. Makes my widdle head spin.

Set Sail That Day for a Five Hour Tour… A Five Hour Tour!

Those reading this blog in the far distant future on Archive.org may remember Chicago's Rush Hour Blizzard of 2005. Planes sliding off the runway, snarl-ups all over the place. I found myself trying to get from Downers Grove to Park Forest during the worst of it.

I had already needed to stop off for an oil change along the way, so I finished that while still on Ogden Avenue in Downers (Click the title of this post for a map of my route). I was down to about two gallons of gas, but decided to just head out and get some miles under my belt before I stopped again, as it was still 3:30 pm and rush hour was just starting up. I tried to stay off the tollway because I'd heard it was already jammed up, and tried to make it along the older two-lane highways. Of course that was a bigger mistake, because any place where the major thoroughfares met, it would take up to 20 minutes to cross that last block to the intersection. Add to that any old diagonal highways meeting in a "six corner" (like Joliet Road, the old Rt. 66 in the southwest suburbs), and I was looking at half an hour just to traverse the width of a Jewel parking lot. Could have just stopped somewhere for dinner, but I would have been overstuffed or overserved, and traffic still wouldn't have cleared up.

I finally stopped for gas somewhere in Hickory Hills... I just managed to drive for three hours on only one gallon of gas. Another hour and five miles later, I had to park under a viaduct and get out to clear a snowdrift that had built up on my trunk just behind my rear window.

The end result was, I left work at 3 pm, and got home at 8 pm. Average speed: 8 miles per hour. Next moring, I got back to work only a little later than normal, and found that everyone else had the same horror stories.

In a time like that, best I can do is keep some favorite tunes in the car CD and console myself that every other driver on the road was having the same conniptions. And at least an errant 737 didn't hit me.

SOX WIN!!! SOX WIN!!!

Boy, the whole World Series came and went before I even had the time to write anything about it, mostly owing to a heavy, heavy deadline. Should I carp about Fox Sports dismissing the Astro's "homer" in Game 3 instead of replaying it five times a minute like they did for every bad call that went the Sox' way? And with failed president Bush in the crowd, too. Gues Fox Sports is every bit as "fair and Balanced" as Fox News.
Oh, wait, that was Neil Bush with Barbara Bush right behind home plate in Game 3. Jeb wanted to be there, but he had hurricane victims to ignore. GHW was there for Game 4, and got to take part in another big loss. Still, that has to rattle any pitcher looking to the batter and seeing a President behind him.

I cracked open a John's Generations White Ale to celebrate, because the White Sox, like this beer, had their origins in Iowa. Yes, 110 years ago, Charles Comiskey started managing the Sioux City Cornhuskers of the Western League.

Of course now I feel silly about claiming the Sox would win in six, but at least I haven't had money on it. I was sitting up waiting and holding my breath because now matter how well they are doing… THIS… IS… CHICAGO… BASEBALL… It would have been just like us to find a way to fail after getting just one out away from the World Championship. But no, the Sox put togehter a whole string of wacky plays: Pierzynski steals first! Uribe goes into the stands to snag a pop foul (no Bartman in this stadium)! And game 3 becomes the longest World Series game in history, Mark Buerhle, a starting pitcher, gets a save in relief, and Ozzie runs through everybody in the roster but for Pablo Ozuna (apparently, this utility infield was being saved to pitch in caseit went to 15 innings). I know "Ginderball" was just an advertising phrase made up by the Sox agency, but that describes exactly how they broke an eighty-seven year World Series drought!

Separated at the Inkpot

All right, I'm seriously behind on a paper about "Star Wars" that I had promised over a year ago, but having just re-watched "The Phantom menace," I must get this out of the way:

Sebulba

Dick Dastardly

Surely other people have commented on this. Sebulba did absolutely nothing in the movie that Dastrdly didn't do in "Wacky Races." And Sebulba was no Paul Winchell, either.

Keywords: New Orleans Katrina Hurricane Red Cross

The theory is that if I use the words New Orleans and Hurrican Katrina and Disaster enough, the ads above me will show links that you can click on to donate money... without my having to spend anything. Or maybe you'll be told that just clicking on an ad banner somewhere will bill the advertiser money that will be earmarked for hurricane relief in New Orleans and Mississippi (there, I've said it again!), and you can do it all without breaking into your checkbook.

And I'm not naming the supplier of the ad bar above, because then all the ads in it might be for "services" to make your business appear on the first page of any search results.

These are examples of "slacktivism," a term not coined by, but referenced in snopes.com, the site devoted to debunking urban legends. Other examples include displaying magnetic ribbons and rubber bands, signing on-line petitions, forwarding e-mails, especially those suggesting you not buy gasoline on a certain day to protest high gas prices (If you have to buy gas nearly every day, you're the reason prices are high in the first place!!!), or sending business cards to some sickly child who wants to set a World Record (that was years ago, he's all grown up and doesn't want 'em any more).

I'm guitly of this very same practice. I spend 50¢ more for fair trade coffee and feel good know that the extra pennies will make a difference in the lives of small coffee growers around the world. And I've sent along the form letters to my elected representatives to let them know my agreement on some issue I've been e-mailed about (yeah! Stickin' it to the man!).
Most of the time, though, when faced with the enormity of some problem like disaster relief or world poverty, it seems that even sending money or volunteering hours doesn't make the problem any nearer to going away. So you might as well make a symbolic gesture.

BTW, it appears that even though I don't use the b-word in my posts, its presence in the sidebars is enough to trigger ads for you to get your own, um, online diaries.

And since I have made a monetary contribution through the Faithful America site, I can, as a slacktivist, claim that gives me the right to make these tasteless jokes:

New shows for the fall season: Gilligan's Superdome and Survivor: French Quarter.

What's the difference between Iraq and Hurricane Katrina?
Bush admits that Katrina was a disaster.

(And it seems the Army Corps of Engineers was working to shore up those levees in New Orleans. The project ended too soon because its funding was diverted to pay for Bush's tax cut for the rich, and the war on Iraq. Bet'cher glad we got rid of all those WMD's now!)

Scotty

"He's dead, Jim!"

Sorry, but everybody else is saying that. Or "Aye canna get any more power to the warp drive, Cap'n! I'm completely dead!"

Radio Ga-Ga

As much as I enjoy oldies music, there's a very big flaw in the way it's been presented on the radio: there's nothing new!

Once a playlist for an oldies radio station has been set, there seems to be an Iron Curtain around it that prevents any songs from being added or removed. Each Memorial Day weekend, the Chicago oldies station, WJMK-FM, would present a "Memorial Day 500 Countdown." This consists of playing every song on their playlist based on some mythical ranking system, perhaps listener requests which they ignore anyway. I mean, how can any pop song be quantified lower on a list than "In the Year 2525?" Since it takes little more than a day to go through the entire list, they usually just repeat it on Monday. And you've just heard every song they will ever play on that station. Oldies stations in other markets do the same thing, just as their jingles all sound alike, too.

---

About the only change WJMK made to their format in the past 21 years was to shift the time span they drew their oldies from: 60s and 70s instead of 50s and 60s. Goodbye "Hello, Mary Lou;" Hello "Lady Marmalade." The explanation given in the radio columns was that they were moving with their audience demographic from "Beaver" oldies to "Brady" oldies. But the result was still a very tight playlist. Better to make you sick of hearing "Respect" over and over and over than to take a chance on any of Aretha Franklin's "forgotten" #1 hits.

Still, the presentation of the music was bearable due partly to the many pioneering DJs that called WJMK home, especially Dick Biondi, one of the very first Top 40 "screamers." And as other station switched to other formats, WJMK remaind the only FM outpost in Chicago to hear oldies.

Well, as will happen in the radio industry, Infinity Broadcasting abruptly pulled the plug on the oldies and brought in the hot flava format of the minute, something called "Jack." Essentially, it's more oldies, just 80s and 90s stuff, expanded from a 500 song rotation to perhaps 1,200. Now, another station was already doing this in Chicago to much better effect -- but their website is still under construction. But Nine-FM has the saving grace of being owned by a small chain, instead of the second largest radio corporate in the country. Yes they present the "Jack" music with no DJ, just some drop-ins claiming that "All the other station managers are scared now that Jack is in town." Really? With their usual 30 minutes of commercials per hour? The kicker is that their tagline is "Playing What We Want." I'd like to know who this "we" is. Certainly nobody who listens to radio for personality and variety.

Jake & Elwood Do a Quarter

This week, the Chicago Sun-Times is running a special report on the 25th anniversary of the release of The Blues Brothers. Click the title of this post to go there now!
Read it now? Okay. In 1980 I was DJ'ing a novelty record show at Iowa State University called "The Mutant Patrol." John Candy got scheduled to do a comedy performance, "An Evening With Johnny LaRue." As the guy playing the comedy records, I got to interview him on the air. It appears that by that time, the full impact of "The Blues Brothers" was not yet felt; about the only comment I could get out on it was his famous line "Orange whip? Orange whip?"

Oh, and "Johnny LaRue" was, of course, his most famous and slimiest character from SCTV. He was leaving that show to star in a forgotten sketch show called "Big City Comedy," and had to leave the characters he had created for SCTV behind.

I've ironed your cape, Master Bruce

Wait a minute! Michael Caine is playing Alfred the Butler in "Batman Begins." And nowhere in the movie does anyone ask him "What's it all about?" Or whether it's "just for the moments we li-i-i-i-ve?" Where's Dionne Warwick when you need her?

And here's your epitaph, Mrs. Robinson

On the occasion of Anne Bancroft's death this week, every radio station that reported on the news, even the all-news stations, felt the need to illuminate the story with a drop-in of dialogue from "The Graduate," or a snippet of the Simon & Garfunkel song, "Mrs. Robinson." And then, in the obit story itself, they tell how Ms. Bancroft wished not to be remembered only for her role in than movie. She seemed to think that, I dunno, originating the role of Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker" on Broadway, and winning both a Tony and an Oscar for that, might be a bit more important.

But rather, when you're in a medium like radio or TV, you go with the most instantly recognized clip. So cue up a sound bite from "The Graduate," or the famous shot of Dustin Hoffman framed by her legs. Too bad the studio that brought "The Miracle Worker" to Hollywood didn't think to get a catchy theme song for it.

So the lesson for actors is: look over your resume. The most popular theme song from your movies is going to be playing from your tombstone. Even if you didn't sing it.

Oil for Food Scandal

Senator Norm Coleman
Washington, DC

Dear Senator,

I'm pleased to see you expressing your concerns about the investigation into the United Nations' "Oil for Food" deal with Saddam Hussein.

Perhaps now you will also investigate Ronald Reagan's "Oil for Nerve Gas" deal with the same dictator. And George Bush's "Oil for Anthrax Spores" deal.

Finally, my Johnny Carson post

I realized I didn't have a lot to say on the topic of Johnny's passing that wasn't just rehashing all of the stories from people who were a lot closer to the subject. My personal experience was of creeping out of bed around the age of 9, and creeping to the grated hole in the floor of our upstairs hallway to listen while my folks watched the "Tonight" show. I distinctly remember the many visits from Joan Embry of the San Diego Zoo, including the monkey that urinated on Johnny's head (yep, a Golden Age of TV). But beyond that, what?
In the larger picture I can say that it's because of Johnny that we have TV talk shows in their present format. And why every TV network thought they needed a talk show after their late news. At the time Johnny took over "Tonight," most stations were perfectly content to run old movies. By the mid 60s, CBS and ABC were trying to duplicate the Carson-style talk show with only limited success. CBS usually went back to a schedule of movies, and ABC finally staked out an alternative when its nightly coverage of the Iran hostage crisies turned into "Nightline."
So now, every season there's a new talk show by some celebrity or TV psychiatrist or Oprah wannabe that misses the mark entirely. I think most of it is because they come the series with the baggage of familiarity, or some agenda. When Johnny started the job, he was known only as a TV presenter, not as a character from a movie. And as far as I know, he never aired his personal views or bore grudges on his show. the few details of his personal life that he shared (his many wives, for instance), were only details that were already part of the public record. His talent of putting interesting people in the guest chair.
And checking the usual string of editorial cartoons, thanks to Daryl Cagle's cartoon index on Slate, I am glad to see more cartoonists opt for a nice portrait of Johnny than for the same old "St. Peter/Pearly Gates" saw. Regrettably, Cagle himself falls for the cheap gag, but at least scores points for having St. Peter say "Every cartoonist who draws me saying 'Here's Johnny' will be going straight to Hell." Wish that could be applied to the 100% of cartoonists whose Rodney Dangerfield memorial involved St. Peter, the gown and angel wings, and "No Respect!"

And I call myself a Pop Culture Scholar…

I first started my little web site way back in 1995. One of my plans for the little darlin' would be to compile a Dictionary of Pop Culture References, where I would cite and define terms springing from TV and movies, to enlighten people of future generations. Somehwere out there, f'instance, is a guide to celebrities and topical references namechecked in the Looney Tunes (which I can't find to link right now). Well, my attention span being what it is, I hadn't updated it in some six years. But finally, I heard a word used that I knew was going to end up a part of the language. Click the title link to see my update.
Our secret word is "Monologuing..."

Tomorrow's Obsolescence Today!

Here I am at my new location (same company, different division), which I started last week. It's an office where a lot of other division are being crammed in as they prepare to move to a new corporate HQ and continue the shakeout from a recent merger.

But anyway, there's a trash bin not too far from my new desk here plenty of stuff has been disposed of following moves by many personnel. Last week, what should I find in there but a Zip drive and Jaz drive and many disks to go with them!

It's no surprise to most of you that most Iomega products are pretty much out the door. We used to get Zip disks from our clients, so our Macs were made to order with Zip drives in 'em already. But no one's sent us a Zip in years. Of course it's now a CD-R, or a big file drop to our FTP server. Zip drives were an indespensible part of the computer landscape for probably no more than five years.

The reason, of course, is that Zip disks NEVER went down in price. For as long as I've been aware of them, it was considered a bargain to get them in quantity at under $10 apiece. Compare that to CD-R's, which went from a coupla bucks to about a quarter each in spindles. and now even DVD+R disks are well under a buck. That's 45 Gb worth of storage for the price of one 100 mb Zip disk.

But of course the other thing mitigating against the two units I found in the trash was that they were also SCSI drives. Hey kids, remember SCSI?

But I'm not proud. No sense messing with the drives, but I still will need some quick backups. I promise I'll blank out those disks.