Orwell, man of the moment.

Paul Krugman's column in the NY Times of March 29th uses the phrases from 1984 that seem to typify things today. He says, "How many Republican senators can get away with claiming that war is peace, slavery is freedom and regulating big banks is doing those big banks a favor. He forgot to mention the other slogan from
1984,"Ignorance is strength".

Dwarf rapes nun--flees in UFO

That is the mythical, but accurate, headline written to show where journalism has landed. Larry Flynt said he would make the whole world a tabloid and he did. My journalism degree from UC Berkeley was never put to use because I went directly into the world of "Mad Men" advertising. But I still read the papers and magazines but there isn't much to learn from them since they mostly care about business and celebrity (that dwarf is getting an agent right now). George Orwell was one of the finest journalists ever. He is somewhat misrepresented in an op-ed column in the NY Times today headlined: "Hollywood's political fictions", about the new film "Green Zone". The writer Ross Douthat says, "the removal of a dictator and the spread of democracy to the Arab world inspired a swath of liberal intelligentsia to play George Orwell and embrace the case for war." Now hang on, Orwell never inspired anyone to embrace war intellectualy he went to war himself. He fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and was shot in the neck. No Hollywood there. He did have an inkling of how the newspapers deluded the British public during Dunkirk. He saw an 8-page paper of the day that devoted 6 pages to race results and a few columns to the War in Europe...virtually on the eve of a German invasion. But who cares really about Iraq or even Afghanastan when you can find out if your cat is psychic?

The best kind of death

I read Peter Graves' obituary in the NY Times this morning. He died yesterday of a heart attack after returning from brunch with his wife and children. I'm not chuckling over death, it's a condition of our existence according to Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. But look at the final chapter of Leo Tolstoy's death as portrayed in the film "The Last Station". It is a drama full of bickering in the house over his last will. He is tormented by his wife and comes to the conclusion that his life at Yasnaya Polyana is over, so he leaves in the middle of the night with his doctor, his secretary and a daughter. He gets as far as Astripova, a small train station in the middle of nowhere. His health takes a turn for the worse and he dies a lonely and embittered old man. Way back in the comic strip Lil' Abner there was a continuing reference to "Are you ready for Freddy?" which no one in the strip could figure out. It then turned out that Freddy was the local undertaker. So Freddy I'll be ready right after brunch with my family or perhaps after a swell dinner or just after the Red Wings win the Cup in overtime.

And the Oscar goes to....

a movie nobody saw. "The Hurt Locker" continues the tradition of "No Country for old men" and "Slumdog Millionare" (which I walked out of). It's not really the film's fault it's the award process. Woody Allen spoofed awards when he said, "Best Fascist Dictator...Adolf Hitler." I remember two things from my days in the ad world. Pitch to the judges bias for originality, cleverness and even cuteness. And spend big on entry costs. Exhibit A is the Apple "1984" commercial, lauded ad infinitum for it's unique, marvelous message. But my question was, "Why are we applauding a company that only has 1% of the computer market?" So we have a best picture that has done $16million at the box office beating out one that is on its way to $1 billion. Who needs awards but the ego-saturated crowd. I got into trouble at an agency that gloried in their dubious awards by saying they were a feather in our crap. But even though Ira Gershwin said that "the movies that we love may only be a passing fancy" I confess that I love the movies, the smaller the better. I liked "Me and Orson Welles", "Young Victoria", "An Education" even the new "The Ghost Writer". To paraphrase Norma Desmond it's not just that the pictures got small but so did the moviegoers. A guy in London told me once there was no good writing in films anymore, Chinatown was it. I said I'll give you two great scripts: "All about Eve" and "Double Indemnity". He said, "never heard of them".

A treadmill to oblivion

That's how Fred Allen characterized television comedy. He asserted correctly that you cannot be truly funny night after night. You can be ingratiating, which is mostly what you get. Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight, said Stephen Sondheim but it's really tragedy day and night.
Jay Leno is still telling Lewinski jokes and will probably be doing Tiger Woods jokes for years. He's not an actor, not a sketch artist like Johnny Carson, not a musician like Steve Allen, he's just an ordinary guy who works for a few hours in a business suit. Letterman isn't much better. My son-in-law is a comedy writer who did a stint on Letterman and certainly earned his $3500 a week doing gags and Top 10 lists. But gee, can anyone remember anything said on those shows.
I have been corrupted by cable that lets me surf aimlessly. I happened on a female comic who said, "When I was little my Mom and Dad slept in separate beds and I thought, Wow, Dad must have a long cock!" Funny? Sure, if you're 14 years old. But what if you're an educated, well read and well traveled adult. Well, there is a show for you. It's called The Simpsons.
The references are so dazzling and culturally erudite that I'm stunned with admiration. For example, Lisa plays a baritone sax, probably the coolest instrument in jazz. Her favorite album is "Birth of the Cool" (mine, too). In one episode her beloved "ax" (jazz slang for sax) is lost. She is 8 years old and brokenhearted. The background track is playing "Song for an unfinished woman" by baritone player Gerry Mulligan. Plenty of funny stuff there and no laugh track. If you want culture with your comedy, watch The Simpsons.
In any case we can always turn to the real wits and humorists: Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker among others. It was Coward who said, "In London I performed for Cafe Society and in Las Vegas I performed for Nescafe Society." Oscar Wilde said, "I can resist anything but temptation" and Dorothy Parker said, "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses".
The late, great English comedian and writer Spike Milligan challenged his fellow comics with: "Can you tell a joke without a punch line and still get a laugh?" Not on television or the Improv.

Let it rain and thunder, let a million banks go under

Such are the opening lines of "Who cares?", George and Ira Gershwin's wonderful ode to love during the Great Depression. Ira continues, "I am not concerned with stocks and bonds that I've been burned with". Neither am I since they all went up in smoke in the big crash of 2008.
It happened on one trading day in October when I was at a jazz festival in Newport Beach, California. When I got back in the late afternoon there were dozens of urgent messages from my broker at UBS. My main portfolio holding had plunged from $41 to $6. This was a 140 year old company that had never missed a dividend or had a losing quarter. That was $100,000 gone in a day. My problem was the stock anchored some big loans that I had at the bank and so I got my first, last and only margin call.
I had worked in Zurich in the 1960's and '70's and came to marvel at the Swiss temperment and efficiency. What could be better than a cool headed bank with a warm heart (a black one it turned out that still defys US law and the IRS).
Despite the assertion by Harry Lime that after 700 years of peace and brotherly love all the Swiss gave the world was the cuckoo clock, it was working for us. We used their luxury box at Madison Sq. Garden, enjoyed our many lunches at the Four Seasons in NYC and Newport Beach and deposited their generous checks to our favorite charities. At a conference at the Bel Air Hotel I asked our Swiss account executive about the group of 50 or so in attendance. He said, "The people in this room represent about $8 billion of private wealth." Impressed? I was. It comes from not coming from old money. We got our money late in life through an inheritance that was bitterly fought over in what remained of a fractured family.
It's pretty well gone now through the double whammy of the housing bubble and the financial meltdown. I'm still alive, still married to my wife of 52 years and blessed with two amazing, wonderful and loyal children.
I'm like the character Mike Campbell in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises". Campbell confesses that he has lost all his money. "I lost it in two ways," he says. "Two ways?" says Jake, "what two ways?" Campbell answers, "Gradually and all at once."
But wait, Ira wouldn't let us end on a downer like that. His lyric continues: "I love you and you love me and that's the way it's meant to be...who cares what fails in Yonkers, as long as it's love that conquers".