Foreign Invasion

Posted on September 4, 2017 by gumbywan

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Now I watch a lot of broadcast TV and you should too. It’s the best way to gather information about the world other than the dark web but you aren’t ready for that. Patience.

When I’m not watching the #1 rated drama on US network television, NCIS, or one of its clones, on Sunday nights I sometimes creep over to the so-called “Public” television outlets on my high speed digital network. Now today, in this 21st Century Comb-Over Era, perception and expectation are everything, and I expect to only hear British accents over on what we will now call for brevity’s sake, the PBS television network.

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On a Sunday evening I expect to relax to some BBC 19th century parlor drama on my local public television station.

Some programs on Public Television are actually from other UK production outlets like the commercial ITV. This is fine by me as long as they get the accent right. I’m as free market as the next yob when it comes to high brow television. But what’s got me really upset now is that they are starting to screen inferior accented series from Australia and New Zealand on public television. As if we couldn’t tell the difference between a British accent and an Aussie accent. Some people may be fooled, but not me. When I see my Pride and Prejudice I don’t want anybody popping off to Outback Steakhouse during the sponsor breaks at pledge time.

Unlike the US, Australia and New Zealand are just down in the mouth British colonies that couldn’t make it on their own. Australia is just a shabby California. There’s nothing high brow or hoity-toity about these convict transportation camps that would interest the more advanced American viewers of TV like myself. It’s shameful to screen ersatz Brideshead Revisiteds next to genuine smart English television content. You can always tell when someone is trying to make it on the cheap. Substitute margarine for butter. Made in Polynesia for made in the UK. A downturn in pledge dollars doesn’t have to mean a sacrifice in quality. How much could reruns of Good Neighbors or As Time Goes By cost? As in all British TV, economical production values are overcome by high brow accents and big words where smaller words would normally suffice on large budget US TV programs like NCIS. That’s what the literate public TV viewer expects. Not G’day or throw another kangaroo on the barbie. Public TV has lost its rudder.

Alistair Cooke – More American than Apple Pie

Now we accept Irish, Scots, and Welsh or even Indian accents in our public television content because these are necessary for verisimilitude especially when properly accented English people are really in charge. This is only logical. Every country has its aboriginal peoples. Even America has Southern accents, but nobody is going to believe a documentary series about our founding fathers where people talk like they are from Atlanta or Sydney, people expect a British accent, and a low budget British production in some dreary castle would be even better. After all who is better suited to present past glories than the British? Nobody in America wants to see stories about small villages in the 1940s, or the 19th century in Australia or New Zealand and if public TV thinks they can foist this on American pledge givers as British programming just because cable network BBC America now gets the cream of British programming, along with the Star Trek franchise, well they need to wake up and smell the tea brewing. Pasty complexions, bad teeth and posh accents are what we expect on Sunday night.

Now with Brexit on the horizon the fear is that even more Oceania programming will make it onto the lucrative US public TV market. I say don’t stand for it. God Save the Queen! Vote with your pledge dollars. Sure you can expect lower production values in British television as a result but these can always be overcome with longer words and posher accents. More specials with dead 1950s and ’60s doo wop and pop groups are no substitute for high brow British mini series.

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One yearns for the days when Alistair Cooke introduced Masterpiece with the proper Theater sup-pended to it. Alan Cummings, although with a Scots accent, is almost more an American staple now than Cooke. And now Emma Peel! Now if only the current content were as good.

I say put the Theater back in Masterpiece and take the Masterpiece out of Mystery. Don’t stand for inferior colonial programming. The next thing you know they’ll be putting programming from the ultimate failed colony, Canada, on public TV. The most patriotic thing you can do today is write to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or your local PBS station to keep our American public television exclusively British. Hail Britannia!

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Dogs Playing Cards

Posted on November 11, 2013 by gumbywan

Okay here’s a new one in the self-improvement vein. Most of you have little interest in improving your intellect so just piss off now, you’re wasting your time and my breath here. This is of no import to your life so just move on. For those of you still here, today’s critical essay is about the visual arts. It’s mainly about flat things you stick on the wall but we may touch on three dimensional objects known as sculptures too. What I’m going to do is try to bring your knowledge of art up to at least a Kindergarten level. It’s a tough pull but I’m game if you are..

Crap “Art”

Most colorful objects that you stick on the wall, so-called paintings, are crap. Why? Because they can’t move around and they are not about anything relevant. Since the advent of film and television the static graphic objects: paintings, prints, tapestries, sculpture, etc. are irrelevant and boring. Technology has passed traditional art by. It’s perpetually standing at the bus stop of history during a transit strike. It’s Luddite thinking.

More Crap

However before TV and movies paintings and such were relevant forms of entertainment. There was nothing to do except reading parlor novels and playing the piano, so if you weren’t musically gifted, as you surely aren’t, sitting around literally watching the paint dry was pretty exciting. But of course the graphic arts went through its ups and downs too. There was okay art like the Impressionists and bad art like Cubism and Jackson Pollock.

Dogs Playing Cards

Well the pinnacle of oil painting and most static art in general was Dogs Playing Cards. Yep, you knew it deep down inside if you have ever seen this collection of 19 paintings by the unjustly overlooked C.M. Coolidge. If you look at the Wikipedia entry for this there is a lot of misinformation probably added by some self styled artiste. Don’t believe it. I’m here to set the record straight. Any simp can edit Wikipedia and there is a lot of nonsense in there like the earth is 4 billion year old and earthquakes are from the continents moving around (Did you ever see a continent move?). As if. Just because these were commissioned for cigar adverts doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be the best paintings that ever were. It is well known that lesser achievements like the Moana Lisa were painted to sell olive oil and Andy Warhol was commissioned to sell canned soup. So there!

Vintage Olive Oil Adverts

But C.M. was no sellout. I know for a fact that he was really commissioned to paint people playing poker but true to his artistic ideals he refused to change his subject matter and you cannot say he wasn’t a true revolutionary, nobody painted dogs doing stuff other than walking around or chasing foxes before this. He risked being ridiculed and never making a dime. My personal favorite has always been Sitting Up With a Sick Friend but all of them are classic. Coolidge even created the school of anthropomorphic art and this has continued until even today, but the zenith was still Dogs Playing Cards, a success never to be equaled.

Sitting Up With A Sick Friend

To digress for a moment, one thing that Dogs Playing Cards has also shown is that women don’t get true art. Women just don’t dig Dogs Playing Cards, or the Three Stooges for that matter. Dogs Playing Cards prints can mostly be found in places like a wood paneled finished basement where the pool table or second TV with the video games usually are; a man’s realm. Or so called “Men’s Clubs” around the bar area. Men appreciate good art and drunks can spend literally hours looking at the exquisite details in these paintings when they aren’t watching sports or action movies..

Well even Dogs Playing Cards is ignored these days, swamped by the technological artistic wonders of television, movies, and “short films” on the internet static art has been left behind. Now the only reason to buy a a painting or print is to cover a hole or stain on the wall, or a safe. You might as well put another TV up anywhere where there used to be a painting.

So go out right now and get some Dogs Playing Cards prints to cover up that place where you put your fist through the wall in a drunken rage. Also avoid those self styled art museums like the plague unless you want to be frisked for a few bucks to look at your shoes for two hours. Go to a movie instead. Better yet find a rerun of NCIS on TV and If you got this far, don’t say I never did anything for you.

Television

Posted on August 3, 2013 by gumbywan

I promised to tell you how watching television can enhance any part of your life and with today’s 21st Century wireless technology the future of 24 hour TV is even closer than you think. As you know I’m not here to disappoint so hang in there while I get up a full head of steam.

Now think about it, what do you like better than watching TV? Be honest. Okay, I’ll give you that but TV second best, I’m going to show you how even #1 can be made better with television. So now we have established that TV viewing is just about the thing you most like to do. On top of that it is one of the most relaxing pastimes. It’s so relaxing you can even sleep in front of the TV and you should for your mental health. C’mon, what other hobby lets you sleep while you do it? So don’t tell me that mountain biking or kayaking is more relaxing than TV viewing. Even going to a movie or, god forbid, live theater, isn’t as enjoyable and relaxing as sitting front of the ol’ telly. Try to sleep sitting up in those “stadium seats” after you’ve shelled out $100 for tickets and concessions. You can’t rewind, record, fast forward through the boring parts, stop to get a better look at an actress’s breasts, none of that. You can’t stop it to go to the bathroom, that’s a game breaker for me. Inferior entertainment. The good news is that even if you are chained to your spouse, friends, family, or kids that insist on doing any sort of these tier two or three hobbies or entertainments you can now always enhance that experience and make it less tedious with television!

Let’s get right down to first and second best: sex and TV. How can we combine these? Well there’s a rich mans solution and the poor man’s solution. Rich Man: 60 inch or better LED 1080p on every surface in your bedroom even above the head board and the ceiling. The poor man’s solution has some actual advantages over the rich man solution: mirrors on every surface and only one or two 1080p LEDs (as big as you can make ’em) placed strategically. Now when your team scores you can score! You’re doing both your favorite things at the same time unless she’s a two bagger and then you can stick with the sports. In case you’re wondering both these solutions are actually gender neutral and also work for the G&L crowd too, I just used a guy example because they generally like both sex and TV more than gals.

Here’s another problem solved. How to use TV when engaging in a more active lifestyle. Let’s take mountain hiking and camping. Both spouses can mount a small TV in their backpack. All you have to do is cut a little window in the back of each pack and voila, even the remote will work. Now only the following parties can watch but if you change places regularly everyone else can take their turn. You can even get your kids to participate in active leisure time (what an oxymoron) activities with you. Only broadcast and DVDs will work with this setup while moving (make sure you get a shock-free DVD player and a battery powered or better yet a solar powered setup). Once you setup camp or your picnic you can break out the dish and enjoy literally hundreds of channels instead of telling dull stories or worse yet, singing around the camp fire. Have each person haul at least one extra (or better yet more) charged Li batteries and a solar charger. Leave out food, water, and other extra stuff if necessary to save weight.

Now with the heads-up-display TVs in glasses offered there literally is no excuse to not watch TV constantly and we have now proved that everything is enhanced by television. Today there is no reason for you to whine about that mall trip or the amusement park so no more bitching about how I never make your life better.

I’ve got to finish this NCIS marathon I’ve been watching while I’ve been putting this together so excuse the typos. I hope your miserable life has at least been slightly improved.

Special NCIS Agent Ziva David

Naval Criminal Investigative Service

Posted on July 11, 2013 by gumbywan

Welcome back friends and relatives. Did you enjoy our little diversion into the wistful memories of childhood? Were you taken back to the years of your wasted youth? Well today we are back to serious business so no talking in the back there. Hey, you, do you want to share that with everybody? No, I didn’t think so, sit down and pay attention.

Today’s essential essay deals with the television program Naval Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS. I’m going to show you why this is not only the most entertaining and inspiring but also the most important show on TV today. If you watch nothing else on TV, you should be watching NCIS. The very survival of our democracy and your sanity depends on it and you know I never exaggerate.

Where to start? Hmmm. A little history. I’m not going to look up the dates because I’m lazy and exact details don’t matter anyway, what we’re going for here is the big picture (I give you all sorts of little hints about how to make your life easier by cutting corners so pay attention. Try to take away SOMETHING). NCIS was actually a spin-off of JAG and is one of the rare instances on TV where the spin-off actually exceeded the parent. Now I never watched JAG but I know from hearsay that NCIS is better, so trust me on this. I’ve seen the pilot NCIS episode say 20 times so I can tell you that most of the critical elements that make NCIS so compelling and intelligent were there at the start and are still there now. This is important in today’s fast changing world where tradition is casually thrown on the trash heap of history. NCIS has maintained the same basic formula for like, don’t quote me on this, 11 seasons. Why is this so important? Because contrary to popular belief, repetition is the spice of life and the thing that makes living tolerable. Gibbs, Ducky, Tony, Abby, and Kaitlyn were there from the pilot episode (Kate was in the Secret Service though for this premier episode).

As you can see the casting was exquisite. Putting aging ex-football star, pretty boy, and method actor Mark Harmon at the helm was sheer brilliance (Did any of you ever see that movie where Mark Harmon plays Ted Bundy? Outstanding.). The range of his ability made the ensemble almost beyond failure. The next stroke was resurrecting David McCallum who all the old folks, the primary broadcast TV demographic, would probably remember from The Man From UNCLE. Then the third stroke of genius was the casting of Goth Pauley Perrette as the quirky but cheery forensic scientist Abby Sciuto. With this three legged thespian stool as a foundation you could pretty much throw any actor or actress into the mix and come out with a winner, however Michael Weatherly (Tony) and Sasha Alexander (Kate) turned out to be no light weights either.

Over the years there have been some changes: Kate was tragically killed off by a berserk terrorist and was sort of replaced by the equally talented and beautiful Cote de Pablo (What kind of a name is that?) as the character Ziva David. The characters of McGee and Mr. Palmer and the agency Director as well as some on and off characters were added in but never was the basic formula tampered with. This is the key to it’s success: second verse same as the first.

Now to me watching NCIS is like family. I’m on a first name basis with all the characters, even the minor ones, and I think about the cast as real people, and you should too. These characters are all meant to be lovable, good looking, and quirky just like real people should be so you should act like they are real people that can affect your lives. Talk as though what they said in the show is real. Your otherwise miserable life will be richer for it.

Your NCIS Family

Why do I tell you all this? Well for your mental health. You need some funny but strong and lovable people to anchor your miserable life on. People you can count on since the real people you know are never going to come through for you, so why shouldn’t it be television characters? Pretend Tony and Ziva are your neighbors. Invite them over for coffee. Imagine rich conversations and interactions with them. Relive key moments in NCIS with Gibbs in a cheerful casual way at a barbecue. Every time you look at NCIS from now on all the characters are going to be like people you really know and love. And unlike real people they’re never going to let you down. They’re everything you wish you and your friends could be but never will be: intelligent, creative, courageous, kind, witty, good looking, pretty much the whole upbeat package. The worst that can happen to you is that some of these good qualities might rub off on you and bring you one more step up from the primordial ooze. What’s to lose?

I could get into all sorts of other technical reasons why NCIS is excellent on so many levels, camera angles, direction, special effects, body doubles, mise-en-scene, montage, but I’d be wasting breath on the unteachable and I don’t know much about them, and they don’t really matter anyway (triple whammy!).

The other real reason to watch NCIS is it is all true! All that stuff they do on their computers, phones, and surveillance cameras is 100% correctamento. How do we know this? Edward Snowden, that Jeffersonian patriot weasel who ratted out the NSA surveillance spooks. He confirmed that all that crap that McGee and Abby and Tony do on their computers to listen in on your phone calls or your Facebook page or your e-mail are 100% real. Yep.

Edward Snowden – Patriot

So where’s the problem you say? I knew you weren’t paying attention. NCIS is TV not reality. Forget that right now. Sure we can trust our private communication with Abby or McGee or even Gibbs, but these are not real people, they’re characters played by actors. Get that through your thick head. Where did you ever get that goofy idea that these were real people? Not real! Whereas Gibbs et al are only going to use your vital information to catch the real bad guys and are going to forget it the minute they don’t need it, the real world doesn’t work like that. The real NCIS (and by inference all federal law enforcement agencies) are out to screw you, not protect you. Think about it. They are in actuality filled with people like you or me, vengeful little spiteful nobodies who want to get their little piece of the pie by using your e-mail and phone calls to blackmail you or harass you to kingdom come. Or worse.

Stay with me here. I’m not sure why you are having so much trouble separating fantasy from reality right now but you need to steady the boat a bit.

The people that are employed by the US Government come out of the same cesspool that other employers get their employees from (remember 50% are below average). Sure they’re vetted but only so they won’t rat or take drugs. It doesn’t say anything about not using a little “free time” to access your credit card transactions to Rubber Novelty World and making a little pocket change on the side. Remember most of these people are hardly being paid enough to live on. What would you do given the same circumstances? And we haven’t even gotten to the peepers yet.

Peepers

Peepers, yes that’s right, the peepers, freaks who want to look at you and your kids naked and self gratify. We already know schools, churches and daycares are full of these freaks so why should NCIS be immune. Via all sorts of bugs, surveillance cameras, and even the webcam on your laptop they are getting their thrills while you go about your seedy private business blissfully unaware. You know, you’ve seen it used on NCIS, in that episode with the school bomber. And I’ve just proven to you that if it is on NCIS it’s most certainly true. Unlike films and live theater, you can’t put stuff on TV that isn’t true or possible. It would warp children. You already knew that.

So now you are armed. I expect you to be tuning into America’s #1 broadcast show religiously. Watch the new shows faithfully on CBS. Watch the back to back rerun marathons on the USA cable network. You will be better informed, more sane, and maybe your pitiful life will just be a little richer for it.

On The Ropes

Posted on June 30, 2013 by gumbywan

Today is kind of different so no goofing off. Hey you, sit down and pay attention. Unlike other posts where I’ve kept things back for your own good, or those posts that I told you not to read because they were too esoteric, well here we’re goin’ to school so sit down and shaddup. Don’t make me come over there! This is a serious topic, not like the Casey Anthony killing or Jon Benet Ramsay. What I want to tell you about is the sorry state of Professional Wrestling today.

Now I don’t watch much television but what I do watch I like a lot. On Monday nights I’m usually watching Naval Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS, on USA network. I love it, back to back episodes. That Goth forensic scientist Abby Sciuto is a hoot, and Gibbs, well, will Gibbs ever crack a smile? I’ll tell you someday why NCIS is the most sophisticated and intellectual drama ever aired on television, but not today. Think future. I don’t want to make your head explode. Anyway on Mondays at 8 pm ET my NCIS bliss is interrupted by that abomination that calls itself Professional Wrestling: WWE Raw.

Now WWE just sucks. John Cena and The Rock suck. Big breasted women holding match cards suck the worst. Half the time it looks like Cena is wrestling in capris which is a disgrace to both pro wrestling and our armed forces. The people who like wrestling now are retards and knuckle-draggers. The only thing worse than the current crap that pawns itself off as “professional” wrestling is reality television and MTV. Vince McMahon ruined professional wrestling. Wrestling today is 1970s Elvis versus 1950s Elvis. That pretty much sums it up.

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further. This rant has nothing to do with that so-called amateur sport (see above) where geeks (or Greeks) grapple on mats; that stuff they do in college and the Great Spectator Sport Swindle: The Olympics. Not that crappy amateur stuff. We’re talking Professional here not the stuff where nobody gets paid and nobody gets to wear the unbelievably ostentatious title belt. Nobody, but nobody, really likes watching that even if they say so, even if there seem to be certain doppelgangers that show up in both the professional and amateur “sports” from time to time. They have nothing to do with each other. Forget that amateur crap. Now that I think about it, it may be even worse (= more boring) than the WWE.

Pro wrestling now is expensive and sleazy. I liked it when it was cheap and sleazy. The classic wrestling era was the ’50s to the ’80s. After that it went downhill. Overshadowed by glitzy and expensive special effects, people forgot the true nature of the sport and worse yet, wrestlers forgot how to wrestle. Today’s wrestler is a poster boy for steroid abuse who cannot even master the basic “Claw” maneuver. Some of them actually think they can “act” and have fall back careers in traditional entertainment.

But here’s the real bombshell, unlike the classic era, today’s Battle Royales are staged! That’s right you heard it here first, the whole mess is rigged; fixed worse than a Las Vegas roulette wheel. Big money took over and the whole thing turned into show business with the outcomes as predictable as a Stephen King novel. Hell predictable, they’re scripted! Everyone except you, my microcephalic reader, knows what’s gonna happen in the ring.

So the current state of wrestling is essentially that of a big-buck crappy Broadway show (see above). A theater performance nightly, and we know where that leads. No wonder some of them think they can become “actors.” Now you don’t know this but I will enlighten you in a future post, you’re just going to have to trust me here now (you know you can): live theater is not worth talking about or watching because it is technologically inferior to movies and television. Hence the current “staged” state of wrestling is not worth a longhorn turd as far as sports or entertainment is concerned. Don’t you love how I bring logic into the mix to prove incontrovertibly the sorry state of things today?

Well what’s to be done? Here’s my prescription: first throw out the current WWE management and replace them with the likes of the golden era’s American Wrestling Association (AWA from now on), guys like Verne Gagne (see photo below) who could spot a real wrestler, not just some steroid pumped pretty boy. Clean house!

Verne Gagne

Move the matches to smaller venues. These big arenas draw graft and cheating like flies to a dead carp. Let’s use high school gymnasiums, church fellowship centers, senior centers, places that keep the mob riff raff and fixers out. Places where folding chairs can be substituted for “stadium seating.”

Bring back real international athletes. That’s right: Crushers, Bruisers, Chechens, Nazis, Bolsheviks, titled nobility, Sheiks, ethnically stereotyped berserkers, throw in a few Al Qaeda athletes for an international terrorist flavor. It is essential to get not just talented athletes but ones people can hate without a second thought. How can somebody possibly get worked up about someone wearing makeup called “The Undertaker,” “Triple H,” or guys with monikers that sound like rapper’s names?

Titled Nobility

Impose mandatory drug tests. The current crop of steroid crazed thespians need to be weeded out. No more steroids. No more performance enhancers. No more athletes that trained with Lance Armstrong. I favor a one strike and out philosophy. None of this namby-pamby rehab and second chance stuff. You’ve brought disgrace on a time honored sport and you need to be degraded and humiliated for it.

Make the rules stick. For crying out loud, a lifetime suspension should stick for at least, say, two weeks minimum. Suspended athletes should not be allowed anywhere near the venue until the Commissioner has lifted the suspension. Foreign objects (see brass knuckles below) in the ring should never be larger than a folding chair. Coming off the top rope should only be allowed when the referee’s back is turned. You know, put some common sense back into the rules and enforce them.

And finally, keep the big money out. That’s what ruined the NFL and NBA where rigged games are now considered the “norm.” Once the big money is in then the mafia moves in and before you know it so-called athletes with a trumped up college transcript are making millions of dollars to take a dive, drop a ball, or throw an entire game. That’s one of the reasons I don’t “participate” in today’s spectator sports. They’re all staged, unlike the classic era of professional wrestling where you could count on a generally good clean match with athletes you could really look up to.

Maybe there is hope. Ring of Honor Wrestling looks like it might have all the elements that made the classic era so great while still being updated for the 21st century. We can only pray and count to ten.

Welcome to my dreary life…

Hide the razorblades…

Category Archives: television

Foreign Invasion

Dogs Playing Cards

Television

Naval Criminal Investigative Service

On The Ropes