Category: Television

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Newt Gangrene: America, America, America

“In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”

Never imagine that any kind of scurrilous, scumbag, divisive politics is beneath a Republican. Newt Gingrich has found Jesus. Just in time for 2012. Do even fellow Republicans buy this? Does anyone in the Republican Party ever acknowledge that the movement itself would be better off if it sounded a little less cynical and opportunistic?

Is there anything more that anyone needs to know about Newt Gingrich than that he is willing to stand in front of a crowd of Republicans and make the statement he made above, (at a gathering of the Ohio Right to Life) February 28, 2011?

Nobody can seriously believe that Newt actually believes this. If he does, America is far worse off than even I imagined. But it does magnify something that has become more apparent since 9/11: he doesn’t even care if you believe he believes it or not. It doesn’t matter.

How does one avoid being rude when observing what should be obvious but obviously isn’t? That New Gingrich, ready to make another run at the presidency, studied the polls and decided that Americans– actually, Republicans who vote in the primaries– want a leader with genuine religious convictions so, all right, we can do that. Here’s how: you say “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.” You say this in front of “Ohio Right to Life”. Just drink in the applause. Ahhhh. Feels good. It’s so easy. And the money keeps rolling in. And James Dobson is already behind you, on his knees, lips puckered.

It’s like “fiscal responsibility” and “no new taxes” and “strong military” and anything with “America” in the title, on a book– not that anyone will actually read it. They just need to know that you, like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and everyone else out there on the right, has not only read at least one book in your life but has also written one. Something like “Fighting for America”. Or “Finding the Real America”. Or, “America– the America of Americas”. Or “God and America”. Or “How Immigration is Ruining America” by Nancy McDougal and Sid Hofstetter.

Not that you could actually have ever been bothered to actually write the book. Gosh, that’s not time well-spent for God’s appointed leaders– that’s hack work, for what’s-his-name– the elite intellectual snob we hired just for this kind of work.

But conservatives don’t give a flying leap about whether you actually wrote a book you “authored”. That’s for those effeminate, liberal, snobbish eastern elites. People like Al Gore and Barack Obama. No, by God, a real leader just puts his name on it. Nor do they seem to give a damn about the rankest hypocrisy imaginable (see sidebar).

I suppose people should be reassured that Gingrich has discovered, thrillingly, if belatedly, that 2+2=4. We all look forward to the next miracle: how he will balance the budget, cut taxes for the rich, and increase military spending, without cutting any programs.

Aside from all that, isn’t Gingrich more or less openly saying that America should become a Christian Theocracy? If not, then what is he saying?

It’s really the Christians who have fallen down on this. Where are the church leaders who have any real religion? They would be standing up now, declaring that Christianity should not be exploited and tricked out in this way, and that politicians like Gingrich do more harm than good to real spirituality.

A lot of harm

Do Republicans ever hold any of themselves accountable for anything:

He [Newt Gingrich] also acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Callista Bisek, then a House staff member, while leading impeachment proceedings against Mr. Clinton for lying about his own sexual transgressions. NY Times, 2011-02-28

I don’t think they do hold themselves accountable. I think they believe they are special, touched by god, with wisdom so sublime and transcendent that mortal men cannot even begin to apprehend the audaciousness of their wisdom.

When you think you are so right that those who disagree with you are not mere political opponents but enemies of the state– nay, enemies of God!– foreigners, and subversives, consistency is truly the hobgoblin of little minds.

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The Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt’s Revolution

Perhaps the most disturbing report I have seen on the Egyptian Revolution was also the least inflammatory, the least categorical, the least certain of what was happening.

Frontline (PBS) documents the low-key role played in the revolution by the youth wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the elders were clearly out of touch about what was happening, the younger leaders were not. Very savvy about technology and the media, the Frontline documentary revealed how the youth leaders carefully toned down any overt expressions of the faith in favor of generic, pro-democracy statements and ground-roots support for the secularist demonstrators. A number of well-informed reporters and human rights analysts thoughtfully dissected their role and wondered aloud just what their goals really were. They pointed out how the Muslim Brotherhood organized clinics and food distribution points and were the first and most courageous about confronting the pro-Mubarak thugs that tried to invade Tahrir Square at the height of tension.

Towards the end of the program, both the youth leader, Mohammed Abbas, and an elder, make more explicit their desire for an Islamic society.

This is not to suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will attempt to seize control of the country and build an Islamic state as in Iran. It’s not to suggest they are suddenly pluralists who want to share their message of spiritual enlightenment on Facebook and Twitter.

Frontline is unparalleled in its ability and willingness to suggest that the situation is complex and the outcome, at this point, is unknown.

And where does the U.S. government want to cut spending? The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. If they do and if these cuts prevent Frontline from continuing to produce documentaries like this, it will be as a great a crime as any committed by the Republicans since the days of Tail-Gunner Joe.

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To Serve Mankind

“My view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

Did you miss this revelation? From the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee– the Congressional body that regulates the banking industry– Spencer Bachus.

Bachus received about $1 million in campaign contributions from the banking industry.

“Now is the time to get the farmers out of the way,” said Bachus, “so the foxes can create chickens and grow the farm.”

There is a Twilight Zone episode in which aliens land on earth promising solutions to all mankind’s problems, energy, food, pollution. They also encourage humans to come visit their planet. They have with them a guide book in their own language which some stubborn scientists have obtained and try to decipher.  One of them succeeds.  It translates as “To Serve Mankind”.

Hundreds of humans are happily boarding the alien spaceship, breathing a sign of relief.

But just as the protagonist has decided to get on the spaceship and visit the alien world, a friend of his, one of the scientists, rushes to the spaceport. She screams at him, “don’t get on the space ship!”.

They have succeeded in translating the rest of the book.

It’s a cookbook.

Spencer Bachus has arrived, with his cookbook, to serve Americans.

If you thought there might be relief in sight from the Democrats, you should know that Barney Frank himself, the outgoing Democratic chairman, accepted about $1 million in campaign contributions from the banking industry.

I’ll bet the Tea Party people are really upset about that.

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West Wing: Sorkin’s Soft Spot For Militarists

I love “West Wing”. It is one of a handful of television dramas (“The Bold Ones”, “Hill Street Blues”, the first seasons of “St. Elsewhere” and “Mad Men” ) that was worth watching for it’s artistic value alone. It is, at times, brilliant; it’s always at least very good (at least up to the fifth season). It is occasionally — very occasionally– annoying. We’re hardest on the ones we love, aren’t we?

Bartlet is allegedly a liberal, and he generally holds liberal positions on most social and some fiscal issues. In fact, the show makes a point of Bartlet– unlike Clinton and Obama in real life– actually standing firm for certain enlightened, tolerant, liberal positions, instead of compromising in order to cut deals with red state Democrats or Republicans.

Real liberals, however, don’t have a lot of reverence for the military. They might or might not believe that the military and the police are necessary, but it’s a regrettable necessity, and real liberals can’t not be conscious of the fact that the culture of the military is decidedly anti-liberal. Real liberals want to make the world safe for wimps. Real liberals recognize that the culture of authoritarian militarism is a self-sustaining model for violence and repression.

But Sorkin’s projection, President Bartlet, is a post-Reagan Democrat. Post-Reagan Democrats like Clinton and Obama realized that to get elected, you had to outflank the republicans on law and order and guns and the death penalty. So Bartlet sucks up to the military.

I think it is a desperate attempt by a thin-skinned liberal to prove to the world that he is not a pussy.

Why it matters to Sorkin, that Bartlet is not perceived as a pussy, is beyond me. It’s obviously a touchy issue, for it is handled on “West Wing” with this awkward, prissy bravado, as if Sorkin wants to make sure that no one suspects for even one moment that he isn’t willing to kill lots of people if it’s helpful to American interests, because, God bless us, we’re Americans. Behind that bravado can only be the absolutely godless and anti-liberal assumption that an American life is inherently more valuable than an Arab or French or African life.

In the episode entitled “What Kind of Day has it Been”, an American fighter pilot patrolling the no-fly zone over Iraq (part of the peace conditions after the first U.S. – Iraq War under Bush I) is shot down. Bartlett goes all mushy with concern about the pilot, his family, his pet hamster and goldfish, and at one point announces that if anything happens to this pilot he will invade Baghdad. He says this with great sterninity and gravitas. I am not a pussy.

No real person like this — Bartlet, at this moment– exists. A real liberal would have already been considering whether it would be wise to start an entire war requiring the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people to get back at a man for causing the death of one American pilot. But Bartlet is, at that moment, utterly a projection of Sorkin’s insecurities about his liberalism: they might not think I’m manly!

Sorkin’s fussy compensatory projections emerge quite regularly, often expressed as awestruck respect for Secret Service Agents and Generals. The awful part of this is that some liberals, knowing that Sorkin is an enlightened liberal himself, might conclude that most military men really are quite sane and rational and, well, just so damn manly.

The most evil moment of this Sorkinese perspective came in Episode 72 (“Election Night”) when Donna fell hard for Christian Slater as an uber-manly military aide. Oh my gawwdd– he’s just so hot! At least, compared to the thoughtful and compassionate Josh Lyman. But then, Donna spent much of the first season complaining about having to pay taxes. West Wing’s incipient Tea Party leader.

At a meeting in the situation room to discuss the downed pilot, a member of the “individuals in suits who sit in the situation room to make it look like an important situation has developed group” lamely suggests they pursue diplomatic channels instead of considering a military rescue. Leo, oozing with manly testosterone, castrates the man with rusty nail-clippers. We are not prissy little pinafore-waving dilettantes! Not we! And, after all, this is an AMERICAN life at stake. But Sorkin betrays his double-standard: this straw man arguing for negotiation is a preposterous caricature of a liberal’s projection of what a conservative thinks a liberal sounds like. Follow me? And he is provided to us precisely so Leo and Bartlet can look manly by contrast, even though they are in favor of health care.

I admire Sorkin’s ability to present both sides of most hot political issues with credibility and conviction. There is a case to be made for a strong military response to certain events, to lower taxes, and to strong security. But why is he so afraid to show us the Donald Rumsvelds, the Richard Perles, the Westmorelands, the Gulf of Tonkins, the faked intelligence, the paranoid crypto-fascists, the torturers (who all came out of the woodwork– you think from nowhere?– during the Bush Administration)? It’s a glaring omission, especially since Sorkin is so careful to show us the faults in the liberal true-believers. I am convinced he doesn’t want to be accused of being a being what used to be called a “bleeding heart” liberal.

It’s all a grand tribute to how TV and Hollywood works– we all love to look rational and enlightened and compassionate but when the rubber hits the road, we are brutes and killers and always will be.

Sorkin’s other soft spot…

Is Sorkin, like so many other Hollywood celebrities, in therapy? In episode “Noel” (Season 2), Josh Lyman has a episode Sorkin must have snatched right from the dime-store psychology section. Lyman is anxious, easily angered, tense, nervous, and he can’t relax. Instead of going to a Talking Heads Concert,  he yells at the President. He cuts his hand. Leo orders him to see a psychologist, Dr. Stanley Keyworth. Keyworth can only be described as godlike, in his infinite wisdom and patience. He is the ultimate projection of every psychotherapist’s wettest dreams. He is also, in his absolute conviction that he is fit to judge the sanity of other people, the most arrogant character ever to appear on West Wing.

We are asked to believe that Josh didn’t notice that it was a window, not a glass that he broke with this fist– repression!– and that whenever music plays he actually hears sirens, or at least his subconscious interprets the music as sirens, or thinks that it sounds like sirens which subconsciously reminds him of real sirens— whatever. The smugness with which Dr. Stanley asserts these things, and the creepy way Josh goes Bedford in response (after the cliché-ridden resistance phase has passed), practically crawling on his hands and knees and licking Dr. Keyworth’s boots, was a low point of season 2. I mean, really, really low.

Even more creepily, Sorkin glibly presents Stanley with the power to label Josh as PTSD and, if he wanted to remove him from the White House staff, and even have him institutionalized, all on the basis of and with the only authority of his so-called “expertise”.

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How to Attend to an Emergency, Mr. President

In the tenth episode of Season 1, “In Excelsis Deo”, of West Wing, President Bartlet is entertaining a group of school children in the White House at a Christmas Celebration when urgent news arrives concerning the health of a gay youth who had been beaten nearly to death (obviously based on the Matthew Shepherd murder).

An aide approaches Bartlet as he is speaking to the children and whispers in his ear. Bartlet, cool as could be, tells the children that one of the parts of his job is to attend to emergencies from time to time. He leaves them for a moment and goes off with the aide who fills him in. He makes a few comments and then returns to the children.

This episode was filmed in 1999, two years before 9/11.

I have heard people defend President Bush’s performance on 9/11 by saying it was quite reasonable for him to continue sitting there, looking painfully at a loss, for seven minutes after an aide had informed him about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. It’s odd that Aaron Sorkin, merely creating a fictional situation for his tv series, thought the President would do what Bartlet did, so smoothly and confidently, in that episode. At the time I saw it, of course, I barely noticed it. It was only after viewing Season 1 again, years later, that I was struck by the uncanny resemblance of the fictional scene to what happened in real two years later, and the contrast between what Aaron Sorkin thought the President would do and what Bush actually did. I believe that had Bartlet been a conservative Republican, Sorkin would have had him do the same thing: it’s so simple, so logical, so becoming of the President of the United States.

Just noted.

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CBC News: Copying CNN’s Dismal Formula

Richard Stursberg came to the CBC about six years ago, hired some American consultants who told him that people want more weather, more banter, more light news, more trivia in theirs newscasts, and systematically destroyed the least worst news broadcast in Canada.

My wife and I now watch PBS news from the U.S. I’ve tried out CTV occasionally. Incredibly, it is better than the CBC National. I didn’t think I would ever be saying that.

So here’s the CBC:  Nancy Wilson is the hostess on the weekend. She is a perfect little hostess and I think she should take time out from her busy hosting gig to maybe hock a little Tupperware or Avon on the side. In the meantime, she conveys to the viewer just how remarkably trivial the world is out there. One minute it’s a tornado or earthquake or war killing thousands of people, the next it’s chilly out there– did you bring a sweater, Mark? Might be a good day to curl up with a warm book. Did I mention the airplane crash? Let’s go to the reporter in the news room– look! He’s got his sleeves rolled up! He must be working very hard, and you can tell he’s incorruptible because, for God’s sake, he has his sleeves rolled up. And he’s moving! He’s walking from one desk to… where-ever. The camera is moving with him. By golly, this is real news I care about, not some mere journalist. And now, let’s cut to Diane to explain how we can keep our kids safe from meteorites– Diane? Diane has moved to the same desk as Nancy– they are having a conversation about the news, just like people you know.

I’ll admit, the PBS Newshour seems a little dry in comparison. There is a ten or fifteen minute lead story, explored in depth, then the news headlines, then three more stories, usually, each allotted about 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes, compared to most news broadcasts, is a lot of time. Stories can be explained and analyzed in depth. The expert guests often look rather plain– you immediately suspect they were recruited for their expertise rather than their looks.

Stursberg has now resigned, with no explanation. I hope the CBC realizes they made a big mistake and chooses to head off in a different direction. The first step should be to unmakeover the National.

Am I the only one who does not like the National makeover?  No, not by a long shot.  Ratings are down between 30 and 40%.  More on Richard Stursberg.

The idea was that even if old fogies like me get pissed off, the new format would attract young people. One prays for future generations if they’re right.

So, when do they admit failure and move on to something more interesting?

By the way, CTV News ratings are currently about double the CBC’s.

The CBC makeover into a pale clone of CNN is not a coincidence. The chairman of the CBC, Richard Stursburg, openly wanted the CBC to be more like the big American stations.

So that’s why we also got absurd programs like “The Border” and “Dragon’s Den” and “Battle of the Blades” and “All for one with Debbie Travis”.

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George Carlin’s Wheezy Tribute

Okay, there is one thing– Stewart’s disingenuousness about the bleep. There is another, and this one really makes my blood boil.

Who the hell does the government think it is, telling me that I am not allowed to hear certain words?

The government hides behind a fig leaf or two: it will claim it never “censors”. No, it doesn’t. It merely fines violators after the fact. It asks you to simultaneous believe that the government is effective at enforcing the law, because of the fine, and that the government is ineffective at controlling free speech (because the fine is levied after the offense, it has no deterrent effect.) That’s obviously a load of hogwash and they know it.

So the networks self-censor. So a tribute to George Carlin, who became famous because he had the moral courage– yes, it was– the audacity, and the intelligence, to tell us what the seven words were, that you couldn’t say on television– so this tribute proceeds with a nod to his most famous joke, and they bleep out the words.

What was the joke? The joke, unintentionally, was on the mediocre minds who conceived of the idea of celebrating a man– now safely dead– who had nothing but contempt for their kind of minds when he was alive. The kind of minds who go, well, that’s very funny, but of course, we can’t actually say those words aloud. Then what’s funny about it? What’s funny about it is that mediocre, constricted, terminally repressed minds like yours can’t envisage a world in which people have the courage to believe anything in the first place (that isn’t first homogenized and castrated and presented to them on a platter), and, secondly, in which some kind of “authority” isn’t going around telling you what you are or are not allowed to hear.

Michelle Shocked — I just found out she is now an enthusiastic member of a Pentecostal church.

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Jon Stewart’s Compromise

How anti-establishment, really, is Jon Stewart? He sounds independent. He seems to be authentic. He sounds like he thinks he is saying exactly what he thinks we think he thinks.

Then why the hell is there bleeping?

No, I don’t believe Jon Stewart is being naughty. Genuinely naughty people do not appear on Oprah, or host the Oscars. Genuinely naughty people don’t get tv shows, with the enormous costs underwritten by Time Warner, one of the most “established” media companies there is.

He is not exploding with righteous indignation, so overwhelmed that he must use the strongest word he can think of to express his outrage. No, he isn’t. If he was, there would be no bleep, because the bleep is not what most people think it is– it is not a network censor alertly snuffing an obscenity while monitoring a live broadcast. The bleep is done by an employee of Time Warner.

So you have to ask yourself, why doesn’t Time Warner simply tell Jon Stewart to stop using words that it has decided should not be allowed on television? Why not? Come on– think seriously about it. Forget the drama that plays every night on “The Daily Show” and consider the reality instead: why not? And why, if Jon Stewart has such high personal standards for honesty and integrity, does he allow them to do it? And since he allows them to do it and they keep doing it and he keeps doing it — isn’t what we have here actually a little “drama”? A shtick?

The idea Stewart wants to believe is that Stewart authentically wants to be himself but the deep, dark forces of repression prevent him.

I don’t believe he wants us to hear anything quite so much as the bleep itself, to imply that he is so naughty, so out-of-control free-spirited and independent, that he just says whatever he thinks, even if some weird authority– who is not stopping him from criticizing politicians– has to bleep it out. So, are we to believe that these authorities who are protecting our delicate moral fiber from being sullied by foul language, don’t care when he criticizes the government?

Or is the bleeping intended to give us an illusion? We are so cool because we listen to a guy who is so toxic to the government, that they have to bleep him? It doesn’t make any sense. The network (HBO, which is owned by Times Warner) pays Jon Stewart a lot of money to be on their tv show so they show him to as many people as possible and make lots of money selling advertiser dollars. If Stewart was really subversive or dangerous in any way, the government would express its displeasure to Times Warner’s Board of Directors (rich, anonymous bastards, who have dinners with politicians) and the Board of Directors would call in the producers and the producers would tell Jon Stewart not to go there.

If Stewart, like Bill Maher before him, decided to “take a stand”, don’t think for one second that Times Warner would hesitate to fire him. You think Jon Stewart’s too popular for them to do that? He’s not too popular to be bleeped. He’s not too popular to sit in that same seat night after night knowing full well he will get bleeped again and again.  He’s not too popular to consent to the bleep.

It makes me wonder what a real rebel would sound like. Probably something like Pete Seeger.

We know that. A real rebel says things like this: you can say what you want about the terrorists who crashed their planes into the twin towers but one thing you can’t call them is “cowardly”. A real rebel says that and the real rebel gets fired from a show that claimed to be “politically incorrect” .

It was a magical moment of transparency for television that nobody seemed to even notice. A television program billing itself as “politically incorrect” and ostensibly containing the free, independent expressions of opinion and ideas, was obviously a charade, a hoax, a fraud. The first time someone on the program expressed an opinion that was really at odds with the powers-that-be, the establishment shut him down. And barely anyone complained. They were too busy protesting Janet Jackson’s nipple.

So what’s the point of the show? Why did they bother to let it on the air if they were only going to shut it down if it ever actually was “politically incorrect”? Obviously, the point is to give the illusion to everyone that we have freedom of speech. We are free country. Nobody is telling you what to think.

So the fact that Jon Stewart is still on the air is somewhat distressing to me. It makes me suspect that Jon Stewart is on the air to convince the American public that they have been regularly exposed to the full range of intelligent opinion about serious matters social, economic, and political. All they have to do to exercise their freedom now is choose between, for example, John McCain, who wants to continue to use rendition to deal with suspected terrorists, continue to abridge the civil rights of all Americans, continue to use torture on the illegal prisoners, keep health care in the hands of private, for-profit insurers, and continue the war in Afghanistan, and Barack Obama, who wants to continue to use rendition to deal with suspected terrorists, continue to abridge the civil rights of all Americans, continue to use torture on the illegal prisoners, keep health care in the hands of private, for-profit insurers, and continue the war in Afghanistan.

I think most Americans don’t think the idea of consuming less, for example, is a serious opinion. Or the idea of self-restraint. Or putting part of your wages aside into a savings account. Or waiting until you have a legitimate down payment before buying a house. These are opinions even Jon Stewart will not express. It is one thing to attack them– the big banks, the Bush Administration– because everyone can still feel innocent. Attack the real cause of the economic meltdown– the utter credulousness of the American consumer along with his passionate greed– and you will be regarded, decisively, as politically incorrect.

In “Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. Leonard Cohen”, Cohen is shown about to do a recording in a studio. A producer reminds him, just before they start, not to use any “dirty” words. Cohen, who is normally the most sanguine of poets, is briefly visibly annoyed, and says: There are no dirty words, ever.

Years later, Cohen bleeped himself in performances of “The Future” substituting “careless” for the word “anal” in this line:

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
And stuff it up the hole in your culture

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“The Office” Jumps the Shark

What happened? This show was very, very funny for the first two seasons or so. Michael Scott was virtually psychotic, totally narcissistic, and pathologically self-centered. Dwight, a smart fool, was an original creation, by television standards. Jim and Pam were the only sane members of the circus, unrequited, indulgent, graceful.

Then, I suppose, came the market research and the audience response surveys and the feedback and the awards and the popular perception that this was THE show to watch, except that most of these people suddenly tuning in because they were told this was THE show to watch were really not equipped to enjoy the genuinely edgy, original content… So the producers jiggered. They Fonzified it. They took out the guts and the originality and freshness and made it like “I Love Lucy”. I can’t wait for the episode in which everyone forgets Michael’s birthday (until– surprise– they were planning a surprise party all along!).

So they jiggered. So Pam and Jim had to consummate their reciprocal good sense, thereby removing the most interesting relationship in the show. So Jim spends all of his time giving knowing looks to the camera nowadays (aren’t these people wacky!) And so Michael is no less psychotic but we are to understand, from his interactions with other characters, that he is really quite lovable and daffy and– horror of horrors– his hair has turned red, and his voice has become shrill, and the other characters, for reasons that are absolutely incomprehensible and inexplicable and completely implausible, just love him to death, and spend most of their daily lives trying to think of new ways to interact with him, the big lug, even though he clearly makes life hell for anybody in direct contact with him.

Because, after all, his heart is in the right place.

Yes, you can have it both ways. Michael’s outrageous behavior– in real life– would leave him isolated, lonely, and bitter. But in fantasyland, he gets to be both: a idiot who wrecks everybody’s life, and a beloved whacky uncle. Hey, that’s what we all want to be: not only do we want to be forgiven for our lapses in taste and good judgment– by golly, we want to be loved for it.

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The 2010 Grammys

I watched the Grammy Awards for a while. It was striking how much of the presentation consisted of spectacular lights and explosions and special effects. This is an acknowledgement of what the music industry really is about– making everything bigger and louder– rather than any kind of nod to actual musical qualities. If you want to impress the audience even more than the previous performer, God forbid you would do something more artistic. Hell no– just turn up the volume, get bigger amps, bigger lasers, bigger breasts, use a trapeze, strip.

The problem, of course, is diminishing returns. Like the previews at the Cineplex– eventually the amp is at 10 and then what do you do to impress? Tell a story? Develop a character? Couldn’t we just go to 11?

In the middle of all this— an award for Leonard Cohen– “lifetime achievement”. They couldn’t even spare a moment to actually perform one of the legend’s songs. Besides– how do you do a laser show to:

Suzanne takes you down
to her place near the river
you can hear the boats go by
you can spend the night beside her

At what point in the song do you set up the fireworks?

Well… you could. Why not?

Who was lip-synching? And does anyone care? Apparently Pink was not, even while drenched, hanging upside down from her silks. Beyonce looked to me like she synched. It’s pretty safe to assume that most pop/rock artists do. But I wish they would tell you before and during the performance. If you’re not ashamed of it, why hide it?

The Who did not appear to lip-synch their Superbowl appearance. They sounded awful all by their lonesome selves. Did Pete Townsend, 40 years ago, ever dream he would be doing a medley of his hits in front of 100 million people? A medley! I’m guessing that this appearance isn’t going to do much for their careers.

No longer hoping to die before he gets old.