Way, way, way overpaid.

I hear that Matt Lauer makes $25 million a year. It seems too absurd to be true, but even if it's $5 million, he's overpaid. A nice enough personality, Matt could easily be replaced by any number of other attractive hosts, many with hair. But he's just one of  thousands of wildly overpaid personalities. I read that's he's depressed because people are accusing him of having a hand in the firing of Ann Curry, (a person far more skilled than Matt). How can you be depressed when you make as much money as he does., unless, of course, he realizes he's not worth it. I have nothing against Matt, but I really hate the American habit of taking ordinary people, promoting them to a status they never deserved, showering them with wealth and then making sure that everyone knows the volume of that shower. Frankly, I'd rather that networks paid everyone less money, tightened their belts, thus needed fewer than their thousands of daily commercials and making tv viewing more pleasant for the rest of us.

My most unwanted Christmas gift.

I got a gift this year that I didn't want, don't want, never wanted, never would want and can't return. It's a Keurig coffee maker, a big black pain-in-the-ass machine that makes lousy weak coffee and cost about $170.00. It was sent by a well-meaning friend, but it's been nothing but a burden since the day it arrived. For starters all of the many coffees and cocoa mixes that came with it tasted weird: metallic or plastic or just  chemically, I couldn't tell. I tried cleaning it out with vinegar and water, and then everything tasted of vinegar for a day or so. Then when all the weird tastes were gone, I realized that this machine makes lousy coffee. Surprisingly QVC was very agreeable to having it returned and sent me a postage-paid coupon. Ah, but here's the rub. You must return it in the original packing, and there is no way I can get this machine back in the box. Nothing seems to fit. It's as if this damn machine never arrived in this complex jigsaw of Styrofoam.  I think this is a deliberate Keurig ploy designed to discourage any consumer planning to return their product.. It certainly discouraged me. So I will either toss this damn machine or have it take up valuable counter space for any guest who happens to be fond of weak, overpriced coffee.

Note: It is very unlikely that the person who sent me this gift will ever read my blog. But if she should, be assured I appreciate the thought behind this gift, but would rather you spent that money on yourself.

Are you sure you've seen this movie?

While I appreciate that not everyone loves movies to the same degree, here is something I absolutely do not understand. Last night ABC did its annual showing of The Sound of Music. Now we all know that this 1965 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical was enormously successful. It  has been a beloved favorite for almost 50 years. It has even been shown in theaters worldwide as a sing-along attraction. What I find hard to believe is that millions of American viewers are willing to watch this heartwarming wide-screen classic in a version "modified to fit your screen", which means you're losing about the half the Todd-AO image. So at certain points, you're cheated out of several Von Trapp children, the breathtaking Austrian scenery,  most of the the "Climb Every Mountain" mountain and basically the visual impact of the entire film.  If that weren't sacrifice enough, these same viewers have to deal with hundreds of commercial breaks for insurance, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, beer, and countless other  promotions. Why even bother?  Viewers aren't actually seeing The Sound of Music, and they're denying their children the thrill of experiencing this movie for the first time as it should be seen—without interruptions and without being snipped to pieces. Screw greedy ABC. Rent the letterboxed video. Instead of spending four hours watching ound of Mu, spend 147 glorious minutes watching The Sound of Music. 

One little word.

I love Nexium. I have had acid reflux all my life and this is the only medicine that actually works for me. The trouble is that it's damned expensive, but, I guess, worth it. Since it is expensive, it's no wonder AstraZeneca can afford all these commercials which always start with, "You wouldn't let your doctor do your job, why do his?" Except the actor they use can't seem to pronounce "wouldn't" and continually says "woonent". Drives me mad. It's odd, too, because he does the rest of the commercial just fine. Anyway, annoying as it is, it doesn't give me heartburn because I take Nexium.

Writing wrong for Breathe Right.

This commercial is fine, but it's illogically written. This actor (Am I supposed to know Mark Collier?) tells us that he has the "nightly stuffy nose thing". He tried decongestants and vaporizing and "then I fought back." Wasn't he fighting back when he was using other remedies? This is so typical of commercials today. It's as if the writer doesn't read his copy and the client doesn't know the difference.

Your worst enemy is something you buy.

Like many people, I have a bad temper. Fortunately I have learned to control it in recent years. But when I was younger, I could easily be triggered by a slight, an injustice or a threat from some bully. As I was thinking about this today, it occurred to me that if back then during several of those altercations, if I had a gun, I might have used it. What a horrible thought. I can recall being so blind with fury that during a confrontation I just might have lost reason long enough to pull a trigger. Sadly, I think that's why many otherwise decent people are in jail today. Because they foolishly purchased a gun. And while it was supposedly for protection, it did them more damage than a robbery or assault could ever have done. That gun cost them their freedom. I recall an old man who shot a teenager who wouldn't turn down the maddening volume of his boom box. That man is in jail. I could have been that man. Every day somebody kills someone in a temporary anger and pays an enormous price for a moment of madness. I feel sorry for all those people. They are not hardened criminals. They are probably not even generally mean or abusive. But they can't reverse what they did.  The worst thing in the world you can have is a gun, especially if you also have a temper.

Note: As you may know this week the Nazi head of the NRA Wayne LaPierre said, "The only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun." What a fool this man is. Most deaths by gun are not caused by "bad men" but by ordinary people who make a mistake or react in a moment of temporary madness because, as I said, they owned a f******* gun.

Somebody please explain.

I mentioned this commercial last year, but I have to cite it again. Why? Because it's the sickest commercial I have ever seen for a car. If I understand the spot, Man A is hit with snowball as he is about to get into his car by Man B whose creepy family is standing by. Yet the next scene has Man A. rolling a snowball down a hill toward the car of Man B. who is already at the bottom. The snowball envelops the car and pulls it over a cliff to what would obviously be death if anyone is in the car. How does this sell Infiniti? Obviously the demented agency felt it was worth running again so they must be getting compliments from some sickos out there. Oddly enough on this same attachment there is a very weird Nazi video, which I also don't understand.

The Rapunzel factor.

How incredibly incompetent must prison officials be if two prisoners can escape from a federal facility in Chicago using twenty stories worth of bedsheets? It staggers the imagination to accept that this was even possible. Whose running that prison, nearsighted morons? I hope the citizens of Chicago demand the firing of every person responsible for this nearly incomprehensible fiasco. It would be humorous if they weren't bank robbers and very likely to be dangerous in their goal of staying out of this Keystone Kop prison.

Season's dumbest commercial.

I hate this commercial for many reasons. Among them, because it's not funny. It's not clever. It's nothing. Second because the customer is that trendy new look that's utterly unappealing and seen in every other commercial: the bearded semi-nerd with the pretentious cap and too-tight jacket. I don't get it. Plus this is a Christmas commercial. Why is FexEx so eager to present us with a thoughtless, last-minute gifter who illogically is eager to make a Christmas deadline, but couldn't care less that the recipient receives a FexEx marker? Who hires these copywriters and art directors who haven't got an original idea between them? And why would FexEx ever okay such a dopey commercial?

Five words.

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
― Gary Provost

This was written by my brother Gary. It was just one of the brilliant comments he made about writing from just one of his books. Sadly he died at fifty, 18 years ago. It occurred to me that this same sentence can be applied to so many movies today. Directors today—hacks that so many are—seem to make almost all their scenes short and off the same length. This is true of films and television. For some reason these directors feel the will lose your attention if the visual doesn't change every few seconds, so they are constantly changing the image, changing the angle, using a difference technique. But every scene is, in essence, five words, no more, no less. And soon you are bored and exhausted. I miss Gary. I would love to hear is critiques of today's movies.

Starbucks or study hall?

I had a scene today at a Starbucks. (Not the one shown here.)Despite being well appointed, the geniuses at Starbucks redesigned my favorite outlet in such a way as to provide less comfortable seating and almost no seating for parties of four. So when I and my four friends arrived today, there was only one small table for two available.  I assumed that the girl who was using two tables for her computer, notebook, and single cup of coffee would willingly surrender her extra table, but she didn't. She was one of those arrogant, thoughtless people who feel they are entitled to anything they can grab. Finally, after her repeated petulant refusals, a barista made her give up the table. By then, of course, our group was too tense to have a pleasant experience. But it makes one wonder about Starbucks' thinking. They seem to encourage customers to buy a single cup of coffee and spend hours hogging a table and enjoying free wi-fi. Why? This particular shrew, for instance, was a $3 customers while I and my friends—who come there ever week—are always a guaranteed $40.00 tab. But she wasn't and isn't the only one. Every week there are students or adults sitting for long periods, often with a single cup of
coffee and sometimes a beverage that Starbucks doesn't sell. Where is the benefit for a company that so willingly allows low-profit loiterers to spend hours taking up space writing their friends or doing homework, especially when it provides an impedance to paying customers. What am I missing?

"See it was about this guy....or maybe it wasn't."

In my lifetime I have seen thousands and thousands of films. Many I've loved. Many I've hated. But most have been entertaining and forgettable, which is fine. But the other night for the first time I saw a new film, a major film, that offered me an interesting experience. The film was The Bourne Legacy and I didn't understand a word of it. I watched this film for about an hour and didn't have a clue what it was about. It had nice scenery, a few bloody scenes, and some meaningless action. But it might as well have been in Russian for all the sense it made. Of course at my age one could wonder if one were suffering an attack of senility, but everything else I watched that night made perfect sense. I wonder if others have had the same problem. And I wonder how a film so without clarity even gets made. Of course I should have been clued in right away when I saw that it starred Jeremy Renner, a name that meant nothing to me and a face that I seemed to recall from many supporting roles. He's a fine actor, but sadly lacks leading man charisma. Another clue was that in a supporting role was Edward Norton, an actor too talented and brilliant to ever be anything but the star. Gosh I wish more people knew how to reply to this blog as I would love to know if there was some value to this film which I did not see.

Let's get it right, Sam.

In case you think the media is getting more and more careless, here are two headlines from today's HuffPost Entertainment section,  one right after the other.

"Celebrities sends thoughts to those affected by Newtown shooting."

"Play it again "Casablanca" piano sell for big bucks."

The first headline is far too serious a subject to get wrong and I hate that it's in the Entertainment section. The second should have read: "Play It Again" Casablanca piano sells for big bucks.

Sheesh!

I love dogs. If I didn't have three indoor cats and two outdoor cats and weren't so lazy about walking a dog and cleaning up after it, I would have one. Over the years we have adopted or fostered several dogs, all strays that somehow found their ways into our lives. Living in Miami, it's easy to find a dog since people here show little regard for pets and many are lost or abandoned. Our first dog Blanche, a mixed Spitz, found a good home with a family in South Miami. The next, and dearest, was Finley. I found him, or rather he found me, during a lunch hour. It was one of those rare days when I didn't have lunch with a co-worker so was sitting outside when this balding, pathetic, rib-skinny reddish-brown dog walked up to me an collapsed at my feet. Being very susceptible to guilt I look him home and he was with us and spoiled for four years until he died of all the canine afflictions that come with old age. During his time with us another small dog followed us home. This all-black short-haired female was incredibly loving, but a victim of separation anxiety. We had her about three weeks before we placed her with a woman in Key West. She called shortly after and asked if we knew that Sable (the name she gave her) was pregnant. Of course we didn't, so I volunteered to take her back. Surprisingly the women kept her and Sable gave birth to nine puppies who were all adopted and, I am sure, are today greatly increasing the dog population of Key West. Anyway what started me thinking about dogs was a photo of Willy (above) the dog my fried Peter adopted for the streets of the city in Mexico where he lives. I think it's an amazing photo and, I am told, an amazing dog. Makes me want to go out and adopt one, but how could I find one as special as Willy.

Top of the mornin' to you.

I rarely watch morning tv, but I happened to turn on Good Morning American today and late checked in at The Today Show and was surprised at how insipid and identical these shows have become. They report the news, but in the most superficial manner. The hospitalization of Nelson Mandela received no more attention and depth than the feature about a dog who can drive a car around a race track. To add to the dippiness, all these morning shows seem hell bent on having giddy hyped-up tourists from around the country gather noisily outside their studios carrying signs or just wearing moronic grins. Moronic grins are also sported by the overpaid hosts like Matt Lauer or  George Stephanopoulos and all kinds of lesser delivers of pseudo news.  This always surprises me because I am sure there are hundreds of talented charismatic talents all over America looking for jobs. So one wonders how ABC, CBS, and NBC happened to choose the personalities they have. For instance, today one of the young announcers on GMA did a report on a tragic shooting in New York City, and he kept referring to the "gitaway" car. Am I wrong to expect more?

I wonder why you wonder.

Do copywriters care anything about logic these days. In this commercial the consumer chooses Prego in a blind taste test. Realizing it is better than Ragu, which she has used for years, she asks, "I wonder what other questionable choices I've made." Then we see a flashback to her choice of a doofus over more attractive guys on a dating game show. Why would she wonder about that past choice? She knows about it. The show was on television. She isn't in the dark about her decision. There is no parallel situation involved. Therefore it is a stupid and illogical commercial. Doesn't anybody at the agency or the company realize this?

No Tannenbaum.

I haven't had a Christmas tree in over twenty years. I suppose it has something to do with living in Miami, where Christmas never feels as festive as it did up north or festive at all for that matter.  The fact that I don't really celebrate Christmas anymore probably has a lot to do with it. But last January I vowed I would celebrate this Christmas and I bought an artificial lighted tree at post-season savings. Last week I got it down from the garage loft and was all gung-about making this my first real Miami Christmas. The first problem was that the tree, which came in three parts, only lit up in two. The entire middle was dark, and search as I might I couldn't find another plug for those lights. When I consulted the instructions, I was informed that the State of California had determined that the coating on the wires was a carcinogen, and was advised to wash my hands carefully after each contact with the tree. Then, of course, I would need to buy ornaments and presents for my cancerous tree.  Since I never exchanged presents with anyone, including close friends, this posed a problem. Then of course my cats kept threatening to knock the tree over since they saw it as a new plaything. But I had all these problems resolved by December 10th. Because I took the tree apart, threw it in its box and put the box on the swale with the legend, "Free 7-Ft. lighted tree. Never been used." It was gone within an hour.

Soupy sales.

Maybe it's just me, but  I find almost all soup commercials absurd. Not because people talking into a tin can is a really dippy concept, but because soup just isn't exciting. All right, every now and then a restaurant concoction is something special...but canned soup? Never. So these Progresso commercials with consumers being obsessed with the product seem ridiculously over the top in the enthusiasm factor. Progresso's campaign is bad enough, but Campbell's "It's amazing what soup can do" is even more laughable. Sorry, but soup is something you eat (usuually when you're sick) sort of enjoy (and only if you have lots of crackers) and always worry about the salt content.

Dissed jockeys.

I generally have a low opinion of the news media, with special disdain for the lazy broadcast medium. This week I find all these tv news outlets particularly despicable and cowardly following the suicide of London nurse Jacintha Saldanha.  It appears that Saldanha, after being taken in by a prank phone call by two Australian radio personalities posing as members of the royal family, was so humiliated that she killed herself. Now the pranksters are being vilified around the world and even getting death threats. That's a bit excessive since they are only morons and not monsters, but that isn't what offends me most. It's that the national news is covering the latest story as if, when it began, they weren't right out in front making the hospital and the nurse objects of ridicule for falling for such a obvious fraud. In short they are as much to blame for Saldanha's death as the disc jockeys. So their sanctimonious stance is really offensive. 

Waste.

I have no interest in sports or sports heroes, as they are oddly called. But I find it absurd that the news gives so much attention to this Belcher situation, which is not much different from hundreds of everyday incidents except that a sports figure was involved. Right now MSNBC is discussing his "state of mind" and "what made him do it?" and other nonsense. What made him do it was a gun. Having a gun made him do it. The accessibility of a gun made him shoot his girlfriend nine times. If he didn't have a gun, he probably would have beat the hell out of her, she would have been hospitalized, he would have been jailed and they would or would not have gotten back together. The distance of a gun made him do it. The convenience of a gun made him do it. In his case, he was also young and unformed and suddenly showered with money and fame which we had no idea how to handle. Those were factors. But the gun was the villain. Just as it is all over America every day of the year. People have arguments. If they don't have a gun, they have fights, sometimes very brutal...fights that often lead to the emergency room. But, ah!, if you have a gun, you have the perfect exclamation mark for your anger, the idea release for all that fury, the climax that ends the fight and silences all that noise it the room and in your head. And if you have any kind of humanity, you realize what a nightmare you have just unleashed, a horror beyond comprehension, and one that will not end soon or easily.  And when you are suddenly and horrifically boomeranged back to reality, you cannot believe the monster that you became just a few irretrievable minutes before. And if you are like Jovan Belcher, who was probably a kind-hearted, decent person who just didn't know how to handle his angers and insecurities, you think the only decent thing to do is to take the same gun that just destroyed so many lives and use it to destroy yours. So the news will yap and yap and yap. What made him do it?  Easy. A gun.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/12/04/3948005/before-shootings-belcher-spent.html#storylink=cpy

"Look what happened to your car."

I am not a violent person. Nor am I likely to engage in vandalism. But I  will admit that I would have no problem with anyone taking a sledgehammer to a car—no matter how expensive—whose alarm continues to go off without anyone showing up to stop it. I frankly feel nobody has the right to disturb the general peace to protect their property unless they are prepared to be nearby and address the robbery. Right now I working on my computer and every five minutes I have to listen to loud minutes-long whining of a loud car siren. Ah, the wonderful fantasies I have of spray-painting that car or tossing a huge brick through its windshield. Would I actually do anything that outrageously illegal if I thought I could get away with it? You bet.

A head full of hate.

This ugly man is Sheldon Adelson. But he's mostly ugly because he's ugly. He just spend over $150 million dollars to defeat Barack Obama. Obviously he failed. But what monstrous instinct drove this  cretin to think it was worth spending all that money? How big can a hatred be? Especially for someone as decent and honest as Obama? Just think, this man, by spending the same amount of money could greatly enrich the lives of thousands. He could be universally loved and admired. He could attack hunger, homelessness, illness, despair.  While he would never be attractive at least people would upon his  face as that of a kindly and generous philanthropist. But instead he wasted those millions on a vendetta, on an ego massage, on a hatred. So what does he end up with? Nothing. No love. No admiration. No wonderful changes in the world that he can point to and say, "I did that." What a waste.
What a horrible, horrible waste.

Thawing ice.

This is an amazing video on the power of truth, the power of film, and the danger of fools in denial like Bill O'Reilly's and everyone else on Fox News. I don't doubt for a moment that this women is genuine, sincere, and incredibly moved by the film Chasing Ice. For a Fox viewer to so dramatically change her perception and be willing to admit it so emotionally, she must have had a great revelation. I hope we will all see this film.