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Like many thousands of other people with a weblog this season, I posted a short piece about the fabulous christmas display created by Carson Williams a couple weeks back.
I also tossed in some information about the song/album/band that I thought might be useful. End of story? Not quite!
As many people know, Miller is now running a large snippet of a much cleaner version of the video as their holiday advertisement for Miller Lite. I saw it on Christmas eve during one of the early NFL games and from what I gather, it's being run quite often. Cool beans! I'm sure Mr. Williams and Trans-Siberian Orchestra were both well compensated.
I'd really love to know what this has done for TSO sales. Wizards in Winter appeals to a wide age group (even my Mom loves that track). I know of several purchases of The Lost Christmas Eve inspired just by this infrequently read writer. Multiply by thousands, toss in the wide readership of Snopes and the word of mouth multiplier being added by Miller... I'm guessing this will be a killer sales season.
The lesson here is one of omission. A different label might have freaked out (oh my, we're not profiting from this somehow) and sued Carson Williams. All the follow up attention created by a fan with a neat idea would have been lost (or worse, turned into negative publicity).
Monday Night Football (or MNF to many) made it's final appearance this evening (the night after Christmas).
It's not really going away, and Al Michaels will still be part of the announcing team, but it's not going to be the same (you could argue that it hasn't been the same since Howard Cosell left more than twenty years ago). I'm going to miss it. I don't know if the new version will have the same pull, like the traffic mitigation it provided. It has been an observable fact that LA traffic is a lot lighter on Monday evenings during the fall with so many people off doing happy hour and watching the game.
Unlike a lot of people, I've actually watched the last few games (including last weeks thrashing of the Packers, which I'll watch a couple more times before wiping). Tonight I tuned in purely for nostalgic purposes.
Despite only seeing it only sporadically in the first few years (and never in the first couple of years), I was listening every Monday right from the start. Kids didn't have TV's then, but we had radios and WFIL/WPVI (Philly's ABC affiliate) broadcast their audio signal on the low end of the FM band. I grew to know Cosell (a bombastic wit) and his foil Don Meredith (a down home charmer) just by listening. And oh, what a pair they made. As much as I liked the breezy (and occasionally intense) interplay between Cosell and Meredith (both of whom were colorful and opinionated), it's never really worked all that well for anyone else in sports television. It was a once in a lifetime combination of chemistry and personality; they were made for one another. The transition between Keith Jackson and Frank Gifford didn't make that much of a difference although Gifford knew the pro game quite well and Jackson had always been (and remained) a popular college announcer.
Oddly, I've been thinking about Meredith a bit lately because I'd finally gotten around to reading North Dallas Forty (I have a rather long to-do list and this had been on it for years). Even more than the late 70's film, the book brings home the point that Seth Maxwell is based on the authors interactions with Dandy Don and others like him. I'd wondered where he had wandered off to after leaving MNF and we got something of an answer. Don's getting old (was there anything but tape on him?) and Frank's voice is getting feeble (based on the half time interview).
Many things we see all the time today were pioneered on MNF.
Weekly recaps
Long before the basic excess of ESPN came to be, NFL fans got their updates about the rest of the league via the local Sunday 11 PM news (three minutes at best) and Monday morning paper coverage. And then MNF found a great way to fill some vacant time during the half with Cosell doing a review of all the weeks games with taped highlights and live commentary. It was a major hit. There was nothing else like it available to most of the country.
Football as entertainment
ABC had more to do with making NFL football the glamour sport it is today than anyone else. From putting it on during Monday at prime time, to hyping the hell out of it and then dragging in celebrities; they flogged the property for all they could and both parties profited enormously.
The spectacle of the current Super Bowl has everything to do with the crazy experiment on ABC. In a culture always looking for an excuse to party, MNF turned the game of the week into a slick, glitzy production that had something to offer to everyone. When it came time to host the playoffs and Super Bowl, ABC went completely overboard, leading the other networks to respond in kind. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but pro or con, ABC is largely responsible (the lessons learned in football carried over to sports in general, and specifically to ABC's Olympic coverage).
Talking about talking
I assume that even before MNF, broadcasters would arrive in the city a couple days ahead of the game and spend a good deal of time talking to players, coaches, owners, trainers and anyone else that might deign to answer their questions. Cosell and co. (but Cosell more than anyone) started the process of name dropping and free form quotation that is impossible to escape today. Howard was the consummate name dropper and I guess it just rolled over into the broadcast.
Paul Zimmerman doesn't think much of the demise of MNF, rightfully decrying the poor treatment of analysis over the years (even during their serious period). He touts Dan Fouts, who is quite good (but the connection with the doddering Keith Jackson on PAC-10 broadcasts isn't doing him any favors); I'd certainly welcome listening to him on NFL broadcasts again. I completely agree with the notion that ABC was wrong to dump Fouts along with Dennis Miller. Yet Dr. Z is also a student and historian of the game. To dismiss the significance of the ABC monster seems a bit short sighted to me.
However you feel about it, the prime time Monday evening football event is now history. A lot like the big three networks themselves. I'm pretty dubious about the long term health of Sunday night football on NBC, but their ability to shop for better games should help.
In this season of frantic shopping behavior, a bit of understanding about the motivations of others can be very useful. Let this serve as a cautionary tale and public advisory about the dangers lurking in parking lots.
This short film does an excellent job of demonstrating so much of what ails us. It also has some moments that left me wheezing. The best humor is often based on some element of truth, which this has in spades.
What follows will be spoilers, so go watch it.
Here are a few things worth paying attention to:
I'd love to know where it came from. I'm guessing it was made in the mid to late nineties ('97 or so based on the Mustang plate) but the where and why are elusive. It seems too expensive (they did a good job of trashing $30,000+ of automotive hardware) to have been the product of a small shop trying to create a something for their portfolio. If you've got some ideas, do tell.
The national debate about the latest secret program to slither out into the cold light of day roars on. I hadn't remarked on it previously because there wouldn't be anything new to reveal. I was angry to learn of the latest abuse, but not altogether surprised. The current pack of warrior chiefs have a predilection for secrecy and driven by paranoia, little apparent regard for the rights of anyone. Pretty soon we're going to need a list (and check it at least twice) to keep track of all the outrageous crap that's going on right now.
I'm posting for two reasons.
First, the Star used an oddly misleading title for an Op/Ed by Paul Campos and I'm just idly wondering why. The original column title was apparently Campos: President has gone too far. For some reason, the Star ran it as Sometimes in war, we must just trust the president. Maybe we're reading things differently, but the tone of the commentary and the title seem incongruent.
The other reason is to point out a wonderful Hit & Run thread. It covers the subject quite thoroughly, with a lot of angles considered and discussed. They even got into the Alien and Sedition acts, the Federalists heavy handed attempt at domestic control that Adams failed to head off. The result was a rising tide of Republican fervor that played a part in Jefferson's victory in the next election. Good reading. Also of interest, Jacob Sullum's follow up for Reason.
I was feeling a bit down this morning about the fact that our lights still aren't up and they'll be lame once they are. My neighbors typically do a very nice job and the tree across the street is even prettier this year than I ever remember it. We're the neighbors who look like we're barely trying (because we aren't).
I'm not big on the whole holiday lights deal and could live without them entirely but my wife wants lights, even if it's so minimal that it looks stupid. So I get to spend the Christmas season feeling like a schmuck, I try not to think about it.
After reading OKDad's missive about Christmas decorations I was feeling even worse. Nothing like trying to keep up with the Jones from everywhere. Later today, with the discovery of this video I was feeling a heck of a lot better about the whole thing (thanks Matt!) Now that we're all lame, I don't feel as bad (oddly enough).
Despite the favorable initial reaction in the community, the notoriety and attention caused by all the buzz caused some problems and the display was turned off. How big did this get? Snopes has an article discussing Christmas lights. WonderlandChristmas has enough background information and details so that you can build your own if you like (me? Not happening). There are other copies and a version from the same house a couple years back with a different tune. The fellow at WonderlandChristmas happens to like the Boston Pops.
While watching the video, I realized that I quite liked the tune Wizards in Winter from The Lost Christmas Eve by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I'd never heard of them before but that's no longer the hurdle it might once have been. After some listening on iTMS I decided to buy the whole album. By the way, does it intrigue anyone else that Apple calls them albums? As Christmas music goes, it's interesting, I'll give it that. I burned a CD and this evening Jon and I played it on the way to the bowling alley and back; we listened to a lot of it but we also skipped a few tracks. I especially liked the instrumentals and we liked everything we listened to all the way through. I'll be beating on it a lot in the car for the next few days. Worth a listen.
Here's something you don't see too often, a positive spin on sprawl with some historical context to help frame the discussion. Or so it seems.
LA Curbed calls him a dingleberry from Chicago, but I think there might be more to it than that. Robert Bruegmann's Sprawl : A Compact History is now on my must read list (as soon as I finish paring down the bunch of Joseph Ellis books I've collected). I don't really think the Curbed folks read the book, they were just spouting opinions based the LAT review: Sprawling into controversy.
I'm not a big fan of sprawl, but I've always seen it as a natural progression of civilization. Crawl in your hole and call it obscene if you like, but that's the way the system appears to work. I've watched parts of the process in several cities (most notably Virginia Beach during a frantic phase of their build out in the early and mid eighties).
Coming to SoCal after living for a couple years just off the outer banks was traumatic. So many people, so much traffic. Ultimately it left us ready to leave for somewhere else and I had a good job offer in Flowery Branch, GA. We were ready to jump and yet even back in early 1993 I could see a tiny town being transformed (the four lane highways and strip malls were new and empty). I need to check it out but would bet it's just another Lake Lanier area suburb of Atlanta now.
Around that time some friends dragged us out to Ventura County and we learned the upside of the sprawl equation. With reasonable connector roads (highways and canyon routes initially), a distant location becomes a new community for those willing to make the trek. The initial long distance commuters (mostly pilots and aerospace employees, based upon the folks who moved here in the sixties that I've had the opportunity to interview) pushed for better roads and inspired developers to build more in a once 'remote' region. The end result? Sprawl and all the chaotic economic growth that goes along with it. When we finally moved out here, I spent the same 45-50 minutes getting to work, but it was driving through canyon roads and then tooling along the PCH through Malibu (versus winding my way along the 405 in stop and go) and my family could live an altogether different life style. That's slowly changing, because there's no easy way to halt sprawl.
What I'm most interested in learning about are the historical constraints which cause expansion to wash back toward the center and the economic impact. Should be a fun read.
Just overheard on the phone:
S: Is it brand XYZ that you wanted?
A: Yeah, that's it.
S: OK, that's the stuff I can't reach.
A: Can you get four of them?
I'm not normally inclined to recommend any form of entertainment sight unseen but I'll make an exception in this case. The Producers (due on Dec 16th) has everything going for it.
It's been done before quite successfully. Many would find that a negative but there are mitigating circumstances. The movie led Mel Brooks to adapt it for the stage where it became a Tony Award winning Broadway Show. Even with the cast turnover, it was a lot of fun when I saw it this past summer.
The biggest reason to assume good things about the new film are the primary characters reprising their stages roles (Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom). The story revolves around the interplay between Max and Leo. All reports I've seen indicate that these two really feed off one another (it's interesting that they're now doing a turn as Felix and Oscar in a revival of The Odd Couple).
This I've got to see.
I seem to have a lot of automobile related material lately. If that's boring, please move on and I'll just have to work through it.
I've been getting grief from weird places for not putting up some more pictures of the new Mustang. These were taken a couple weeks ago on a wonderful warm and clear day out at the western edge of town. I realized as I was putting them up tonight that I've never done any interior shots or close-ups, something I'll have to fix in the future.
That should make some people happy (you know who you are).
The stiff ride and smooth cornering has proven to be even better than I expected. That said, when it's raining for the first time in a while and still slick, one needs to be a bit conservative about acceleration on freeway ramps. I got a wee bit carried away Friday morning coming home from Orange County. The car recovered quite nicely.
With the cloudy weather finally clearing up (it was a sparkling day), I went looking for someplace to drive that I hadn't tried before. I should have taken my camera, there were some awe inspiring vistas on my route.
My route wound south on Westlake/Decker to Mulholland Highway which I'd noticed on the map last night went all the way to the sea. It was a nice drive down, but I got stuck behind some 'pokes on Decker and had to follow some rather cautious bikers on Mulholland. After running a bit east on PCH, I made the turn north on Decker. I was taking it pretty easy (it's been a while since I've come up that way) until a bike arrived arrived on my butt. I eventually waived him by and then followed which made for a great couple miles of driving as he gradually stretched his lead. Then he bounced past another 20 MPH corner driver that I got stuck behind for a couple miles. All told, I had three wide open stretches on the ride up and enjoyed myself quite a bit.
Kurt pointed out that the fate of my well worn Civic was left up in the air. Rest assured, we still have it. It's a shared resource among the driving family for whomever needs it most (making a long drive? please take it). Through some quirk of life, I always seem to be in it when it's empty and we pass a gas station (I think the kids cars are always empty).
I'd been going on the assumption that I was going to be out of the car soon for some time and had sailed right on past the 120,000 mile dealer check up. Just the basics, mam! That had worked just fine until the last couple of weeks the car was mine. In those last couple of weeks, it developed a very nasty tap. Only when cold, and only when at low RPMs. Once it warmed up and was driven a bit, it mostly went away but it was unnerving none the less. I was thinking valves and large numbers floated through my head.
It went into the local Honda dealer right after my new car arrived and it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. According to a fellow there, it sounded like a common problem for that generation. Most often a rod problem, relatively easy to fix early on as long as there wasn't any valve damage. Kinda pricey (cheap on parts, several hours of labor). In the end, it was a cracked valve cover. A bit pricey itself, but relatively easy to replace.
There were no other problems (that I had to pay for, they did have to retap the transmission drain plug) from the whole transfusion, rotation, inspection regimen. At 135,000+ miles the car runs quite well and once again sounds good, it has another 30K of tread and nothing is broken or needs attention. The boys are leaden of foot (I wonder where that comes from?), but as long as they pay attention (car's tell you when they are ill, you just need to notice) I see no reason we can't go 200K without major problems. Moving away from this kind of reliability was a consideration with the new car, but I wanted fun that couldn't be found there.
