Friday, February 10, 2012
Retro TV Friday
This week, It's About TV takes a look at an unusual program - a football game televised on November 23, 1963. That's right - the day after JFK's death. Check it out. ◙
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Opera Wednesday
Lego Tosca. Need I say anything more? Although, given the quality of productions from the last few years (yes, that means you, Met Opera), this is actually pretty good. ◙
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Ben Gazzara, R.I.P.
First, of course, was Run For Your Life. Now, I don't have clear memories of it - I was, after all, only five or six when it was on. But I remember him running, always running. And lying in the back of an ambulance. And sitting next to someone lying in the back of an ambulance. And that he was supposed to be dying, but he never seemed to look any different. And that his dying didn't have anything to do with him having been in the back of the ambulance.* But I do recall that I liked the show, even at five or six.
*And an opening title scene that looked as if it had been shot on the Bonneville Salt Flats. But that may also have had something to do with Craig Breedlove, who was breaking the land speed record at the time, and who I watched on Wide World of Sports.
Then there was a two-part TV movie, The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. This was a movie that speculated on what would have happened had Oswald not been shot by Jack Ruby but lived to stand trial. Gazzara was the prosecuting attorney, and Lorne Greene the defense attorney. (John Pleshette, in his pre-Knots Landing days, was Oswald, for what it's worth.) At the time, back in 1978, I was inclined to buy into the JFK assassination conspiracies - it seemed like an exciting thing to believe in. And that was the crux of the movie, that Oswald had been part of a conspiracy, that Gazzara was relentless in his efforts to prove Oswald's guilt, and that Greene was desperate to get his client off - without, as it happened, Oswald's cooperation. I also remembered that Oswald was kept in a glass booth in the courtroom, ala Adolf Eichmann. A nice historical touch, I thought, since Eichmann's trial occurred in 1961, and would have been a strong influence on an Oswald trial in 1964.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Another mangled one!
CBS, which aired the AFC Championship Game in question, buys more daytime programming from Idol producer Radio Television Luxembourg than even Fox, and the majority of their non-news daytime programming is controlled by the German television network, as their two hours of current versions of classic game shows is greater than the hour and a half of daytime dramas from Sony (the only network with two daytime dramas). The bigger scare I thought was because Mr. Tyler is involved with RTL Group, it could affect the network considering both The Price Is Right (1972 - RTL acquired the show when it acquired Pearson plc's television arm in 2000) and Let's Make a Deal (2009; RTL, long a holder of foreign licences, acquired the franchise earlier that year) are from RTL, and both game shows are five days a week, 39 weeks a year of original programming.
These rockers cannot sing and with the Budweiser Shootout just two weeks away, need to be called for a visit to the Oval Office. There's a consultation flag waving for Mr. Tyler, and Dr. LaRoche is glad to have him in her office. I write this hours from XLVI -- hoping that we don't have another idiot performance! ◙
Friday, February 3, 2012
Retro TV Friday
This could just as well be Classic Sports Thursday, for that matter, although the game itself is no classic. This is perhaps one of the oldest extant college football television broadcasts: from September 29, 1951.
A few notes: it's the opening game of the season (on September 29! They only played 10 games at this point), which Notre Dame wins 48-6 (Indiana is bad as usual; rare enough that the Fighting Irish get off to a good start nowadays). According to one of the YouTube comments, the game "was actually a broadcast done by something called the Theater Television Network, which didn't do traditional broadcast to homes, but to theaters, where patrons bought tickets to watch the game on the big screen. TTN began in 1951 by televising Truman's State of the Union address and followed with college basketball games that winter and this Sept. 29 game from South Bend, Indiana. TTN died two years later." Hmm, sounds like an idea for a future article.
And the announcer? None other than the future anchor of ABC World News Tonight, Frank Reynolds! Who knew? ◙
A few notes: it's the opening game of the season (on September 29! They only played 10 games at this point), which Notre Dame wins 48-6 (Indiana is bad as usual; rare enough that the Fighting Irish get off to a good start nowadays). According to one of the YouTube comments, the game "was actually a broadcast done by something called the Theater Television Network, which didn't do traditional broadcast to homes, but to theaters, where patrons bought tickets to watch the game on the big screen. TTN began in 1951 by televising Truman's State of the Union address and followed with college basketball games that winter and this Sept. 29 game from South Bend, Indiana. TTN died two years later." Hmm, sounds like an idea for a future article.
And the announcer? None other than the future anchor of ABC World News Tonight, Frank Reynolds! Who knew? ◙
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Government regulations at it again: the wimping of America
In 2000, a day after leading all 300 laps at a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in Loudon, New Hampshire, Jeff Burton was scheduled to make a speaking engagement in Atlanta when between the airport and the speaking venue, a tyre failed and the party was stranded. With an option to call a taxi or a representative of the firm organising the appearance, Mr. Burton refused, telling his group that he was riding, "We're not going to call ahead to get picked up. We can change this." It took eighteen minutes, but the entire traveling group followed the race driver's orders. He responded, "We had the best eighteen-minute pit stop you can imagine. We went in first and came out 843rd."
Now, with the fuel economy standards imposed by years of liberal activism, situations such as Mr. Burton's are disappearing. The American Automobile Association warned with new fuel economy standards requiring greater fuel efficiency, the next thing to go is the spare tyre, jack, and wrench, which can be 15kg or greater of weight savings to reach new federal standards. Some have just an air pump, while others have nothing.
This report warns that if there was a situation such as Mr. Burton's in many modern cars, the only thing left is to call a wrecker with a tyre ordered from random to do the job. Government created wimps who cannot do what is needed is the goal. ◙
Now, with the fuel economy standards imposed by years of liberal activism, situations such as Mr. Burton's are disappearing. The American Automobile Association warned with new fuel economy standards requiring greater fuel efficiency, the next thing to go is the spare tyre, jack, and wrench, which can be 15kg or greater of weight savings to reach new federal standards. Some have just an air pump, while others have nothing.
This report warns that if there was a situation such as Mr. Burton's in many modern cars, the only thing left is to call a wrecker with a tyre ordered from random to do the job. Government created wimps who cannot do what is needed is the goal. ◙
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Opera Wednesday: Brava, Ashley!
On an Opera Thursday column last year, we used her rendition of "Let the Bright Seraphim" from Händel's Samson at Governess Haley's to reference the opera aria. I've attended a few of her opera performances, and had the chance (Beethoven's Mass in C Major, 2010) to perform with her. I received wonderful news over the weekend that Ashley Briggs had won the South Carolina Regional Qualifier for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and is advancing to the Southeast Regional in Winnipeg, Manitoba!
I've been honoured to have sung with her in Mass in C Major, and express my congratulations!
Brava, Ashley! On to WPG! ◙
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Opera Wednesday
In a 2010 Greenville Light Opera Works performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury, set in a South Carolina courtroom, one of the Gentlemen of the Jury was wearing a 2008 Hendrick Motorsports tee-shirt with the #5 team. Now that may sound innocent considering I had seen this performance and discussed it in a previous column on this blog. When seeing the full show, you will understand more of this comedy when news came from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour.
Wednesday's events included a stop at Hendrick Motorsports, with three of the team's four drivers at the event. The fourth, Kasey Kahne, the 2012 driver of the Hendrick #5, was absent. What was his excuse for not being at the "required" event?
Mr. Kahne was on Jury Duty.
Hopefully he won't be called "Juror Number Five" in any of his cases. But this was life imitating art! A juror in a Hendrick shirt, and now the current driver is on jury duty. Things do think alike! ◙
Wednesday's events included a stop at Hendrick Motorsports, with three of the team's four drivers at the event. The fourth, Kasey Kahne, the 2012 driver of the Hendrick #5, was absent. What was his excuse for not being at the "required" event?
Mr. Kahne was on Jury Duty.
Hopefully he won't be called "Juror Number Five" in any of his cases. But this was life imitating art! A juror in a Hendrick shirt, and now the current driver is on jury duty. Things do think alike! ◙
Friday, January 20, 2012
Life report: 15 years of life!
Our South Carolina Citizens for Life's Life Weekend 2012 (my 15th that I've attended) was busy, but worth every minute of the action. Friday night, the ceremonies began (it's become a frequent event for a Friday event to precede the March for Life, as I remember attending the ones in 2006 (Suzanne Vitadamo) and 2011 (Rick Santorum). This year's "Proudly Pro-Life Dinner" was scheduled to hold 200 people at Our Lady of the Hills Catholic Church, but with over 250 attended, someone forgot and dinner wasn't served to a considerable number of those in attendance, including the children of our keynote speaker! How could that have happened, I can't remember, but a local restaurant was called to finish supplies for those (and the speaker noted that!) deprived. If that wasn't enough, the union airline attendants lost the luggage of our Saturday keynote speaker and she arrived in town without it . . . and the worst part of it was she was shabbily dressed when the contingent were in business suits (and I never appear at major events without a suit)! Oh to think of the old days when people were dressed to the nines for airline flights!
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