EMMYS, METS, RACE, POLITICS, BARRY MANILOW, ETC.

SCANDAL OF THE DAY:

Barry Manilow beating out Stephen Colbert for best entertainer at the EMMYs.

Note: That while the cameras were all over Colbert as he graciously hugged Jon Stewart on his less than fully deserved award, the camera operators knew better than to give us Colbert's reaction upon being snubbed in favor of Mr. Mandy. I am sure he is not a good enough actor to have disguised his dismay. Curiously, however, the trauma of losing to Barry Manilow seems--by some strange conversion hysteria or identfication with the oppressor--to have turned Mr. Colbert temporarily gay. Photo evidence above.

FRUSTRATION OF THE DAY:

That Colbert made his dismay at losing to Mr. Mandy explicit while presenting the reality TV show award with Jon Stewart hence making my aforementioned (and stubbornly undeleted) perception irrelevant. By turning misfortune into comedy by the alchemy of candor, Stephen Colbert stole my perceptual thunder and for that I---I---I just admire him all the more! Bastard.

COMEDY OF THE DAY:

The fact that this clown Howie Mandel seems so satisfied with himself for being nothing more than a game show host. (Not even a glorified game show host). This is what is wrong with and wonderful about our society--that people can evince brazen self-importance for doing virtually nothing. He was strutting around the stage like the Paris Hilton of men. (Although, actually, that creepy guy Simon Cowell more nearly approximated the dazzlingly shameless, preternaturally exhibitionistic, famous-for-nothing heiress by appearing with his shirt (warning: disturbing and graphic content to follow) almost entirely un-buttoned .)

It would be as if Carrot Top thought he was the swaggering shit not in spite of doing those inane 1-800-COLLECT commercials but precisely because he had done them.

PROFOUNDLY UN EMMY-LIKE MOMENT OF THE NIGHT:

When the annual memorial honor roll of the dear and departed ended with Richard Pryor saying "See you next week" and then being shut behind bars and not being able to get out--the bars now echoing with the unnegotiable finality of death, the force that separates forever and absolutely.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Now that the John Mark Karr creep is being let go (based on a DNA mismatch), can Karl Rove sue him for breach of contract?

QUOTE OF THE DAY: (By my brother who is visiting from Prague with his Czech -speaking kids.)

"Ah it's music to my ears to hear them fighting in English."

ANECDOTE OF THE DAY:

My brother's son Daniel is a huge Mets fan and (largely for reasons of his name, I suspect) Lastings Milledge is his favorite player. Anyhow out of innocent enthusiasm, Daniel made a do-rag sporting monkey doll with a Lastings Milledge number 44 jersey that he wanted to bring to Shea in honor of his favorite player. Needless to say, I had to have a little avuncular sit down with him--in which I initiated him into the hard realities of racial perceptions and sensitivity. I think the Howard Cossell "That little monkey sure can run" story got the point across. Daniel seemed a bit crushed by the sordid fallen-ness of the adult world, but he understood. We made a brief effort to refashion the skull capped monkey doll into another lighter-skinned player's likeness, but it was too hard to turn the 44 into a 5 for David Wright. And, besides, it just didn't look like David Wright as much as it looked like Lastings Milledge.

IMPRESSIONS FROM A NIGHT AT SHEA:

Friday night, I went out to Shea with my brother and his son (sans Lastings doll) and was struck by a few things:

How strange it is that they started playing "Sweet Caroline" to get everyone in a sad, emotional light FM mood in the 8th inning down a run--as if preparing us for the inevitability of defeat. The consolations of ballad versus the rousing spur of anthem or chant. It felt like a late 1970s or early 1980s Mets concession--rather than the battle cry one might expect from a team that's 30 games over .500 team.

With Shawn Green on the team, the promotional possibilities are dizzying. Mets Yarmulke night. Find the Afikomen night. Payus whatever you want night (aka Haggle night aka Jew Us Down Night)---on which you can negotiate your ticket price. Oy. The ideas just write themselves.

FANCY HOMELESS ADDRESS OF THE DAY:

" I live just off Central Park West. Yeah, just east of it."

DREAM FRAGMENT OF THE DAY:

In one dream I had to pee. In one I had to cry. I guess I was filled with fluids last night.

HUMBLING EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:

Walking around The Museum of Natural History and Central Park with my 10 and 8 year old nephew and neice and two women over 60 years old (my cousin and my mother) and being by far the most exhausted and sore of the crew. Granted, standing and walking are not really my things. I'm pretty much a sitting and running kind of a guy. But still. No excuse. A shameful display of unvigorousness.

MOVIE THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

While I really liked "Little Miss Sunshine", I'm glad I saw it a few weeks ago. It'd be kind of creepy to see it now--as our perceptions of little girl beauty pageants have gone from the tacky to the tragic with the re-emergence of the whole JonBenet media circus.

ANECDOTE OF THE DAY #2:

Lester and the White Sox and the Coma.

I just heard a great story about my grand uncle Lester who was a life long Chicago White Sox fan and, late in life, a part owner of the team. In his 70s, after some heart surgery, he fell into a coma for about 6 weeks. Everyone assumed he'd never come out of it. One night they left him in the room to get dinner and his son suggested they leave the White Sox game on TV to keep him company. When the son returned, he noticed that his father had returned to consciousness and was muttering "God damn White Sox"

DREAM FRAGMENT OF THE DAY #2:

Something about a Jew who's a closet Muslim and a Muslim who's a closet Jew.

RELIGIOUS OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

The beauty of Judaism, is that it understands the primacy of the question over the answer. Life is all about the act of questioning: This is true on both the philosophical plane ("Why is There Something Instead of Nothing", "Why did you do all these things for us G-D, when you could have just done one or two?" etc.) and on the more pedestrian plane:

When does this go on sale?

Where is your supervisor?

Do you want to hear from my attorney?

RELIGIO-POLITICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

Observation on Katherine Harris and the separation of church and state. Evidently, she claimed that "the spearation of church and state is a lie" and the founding fathers "never intended us to be ruled by secular laws." In doing so she was merely making explicit what many if not most religious right wing Republicans believe to be the case--confirming that the differences between Islam and much of America are not so great as we'd like to think and that the description of this battle of civilizations as a holy war are not so far fetched.

IRAQ GOOD NEWS ITEM OF THE DAY:

No Shia, Sunni or Kurd leader questioned the separation of church and state today.

LITERARY COMMENT OF THE DAY:

Richard Ford. A very good, accomplished novelist. A very fine writer. But much like Updike, he seems entirely too well constituted by the terms of adult, socially-defined reality for me to really connect with and be moved by his characters. In a story of his in this week's New Yorker, his protagonist talks a lot about things having a "second marriage" feeling. Well, he seems too perfectly second marriage in his sensibilities for me. There is nothing raw and primal and inchoate. He seems so well defended, shaped, defined, so saturated and determined by real world relations and responsibilities--Just so freaking normal and solid and adult. The first time I read one of his books, I felt it was good for me to be in the presence of a sort of smart, sort of likable, very normal guy for a few weeks. It was like some kind of a moral corrective. Some taking of the literary cure. Some kind of a retroactive smart guy fraternity experience I never had. I still sort of feel that way. He's just too well constituted an America guy for me--but I do sort of feel he's good for me in a kind of medicinal way. Again, I recognize this is no knock on him. And perhaps (if one is looking to knock) it's a knock on me.

CARTOON WITHOUT ILLUSTRATION OF THE DAY:

A guy who's just seen his baseball team blow a big opportunity on TV. He pauses, takes a deep breath and then says the following mantra to himself aloud.

GUY: Perspective, perspective, perspective.

And then, after a brief pause, he puts his fist through the table.

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Posted on 8/29/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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