Reporting the News

    Those of you that do not watch The Colbert Report regularly probably aren't up on the latest "scandal" making headlines in the ever-so-ridiculous American news media.  (Or, as a young lady of my acquaintance prefers, "ricockulous.")  For the first time in goodness-knows-how-long, this blog would like to call attention to the insightful--- yes, I said that--- words of a politician:  "I think it's an important thing for members of Congress to be able to participate in a good-natured joke."  Somewhere, the spirit of Jonathan Swift is rubbing its ectoplasmic temples in unfathomable agony (why?  c.f. the revolting misrepresentation of same here and the last sentence here).  It occurs to me that if held to the same nonsensical standard of libel and besmirchment, the Not-So-Good Doctor would surely be publicly excoriated for buggering raccoons in front of schoolchildren (while eating veal in Gestapo garb, of course).

 

    For the record, equally insightful words from the politician at the center of this ricockuolous storm:  "If you combine the two together, it's probably even more fun."  Ahhh, selah....

Held Up To The Light

    This blog neglected to note earlier this week the passing of the American comedian Red Buttons.  Alas, no word on whether or not he was subjected to Poseidon immediately prior. 

    A FEW DAYS LATER:   Why does it always seem that character actors are on an ever-thinning endangered species list? The latest passing is that of Jack Warden, who died at 85 earlier this week. For all of his fine films--- From Here to Eternity, Twelve Angry Men, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Brian's Song, Being There, All The President's Men, Heaven Can Wait, The Verdict, Bulworth-- he'll, sadly, probably only be familiar to younger viewers as the angry grandfather in the abominable Problem Child movies. (Oy vey.) But Harry Fox, from the TV series Crazy Like A Fox in the mid 80s, was a wonderful comic creation. Sad news, really.

Absolutely Tintinnabulous!

    The 2006 winners for the Bulwer-Lytton contest (for the worst opening sentences of unwritten novels) are in, and some of the honorees are hoots indeed.  This blog's favourite entry is this one:

"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"

It's even funnier if you imagine it being read by Ryan Stiles doing his Carol Channing impression on Whose Line Is It, Anyway?  (from the episode with Robin Williams, which you can see in its miniaturized entirety here). 

Stop The World, We're Gonna Get Offed

    Alright lads, it looks like we'll soon have no function at all --- save to open pickle jars and fart on command.  (Actually, I know a few women....)  Woe is us, our end is near....

School Daze

    It's a bit of a peculiar thing reading this article from the Chronicle, remembering how a few years ago I would heartily encourage students to apply to graduate school.  In recent years, as Jon Stewart would say, "er, not so much."  Suffice it to say that these words about blokes like Yours Untruly ring perhaps a little too profoundly true:  "They are romantics who must suddenly become realpolitikers."  (Insert wistful and slightly embarrassed shrug here.)  Some of us got the cynicism but not the professionalization to make us oblivious to it.

Plugging Away

    Because some of you will be positively LIVID if I don't report on this....

 

    Key quote:  "You don't just buy a car, you research it."  No word on whether or not you're allowed to kick the tires, check the exhaust or test the ignition.  Vroom vroom....

The Bard Sell

    Let's face it: these days, you can't do even the simplest of tasks without finding someone trying to sell you something.  Alas, even this blog has ads, even if Google in its infinite insipidity seems to decide that those ads should always be related to establishing your own blog.  (Do I care enough to look into changing this?  Not a wealthy tinker's damn.)   In, however, one of those absurd flashes that for some pass as thought, it occurred to the Not-So-Good Doctor that the improverished designers of those myriad advertisements seem to be ignoring one of their potentially greatest resources, a little-known and out-of-copyright author named William Shakespeare.  Why, one has to ask, oh why?  (Did I mention that he's out of copyright?  This alone should have advertisers moist at their choice of possible foists.)  Why use cheap slogans when you can use ones not merely literate, but catchy enough to survive centuries?  And why corrupt Bob Dylan at cost when you can have Shakespeare for free?  So, let this blog offer some suggestions for incorporating Shakespeare into the world of the thick-and-hard sell, a world the great showman would, at least at some level, have surely appreciated:

• for Ex-Lax, feature a beaming middle-aged man staring directly into the camera and averring, "Finally, I'm as constant as the northern star!"
• for NASCAR, a charismatic Jeff Gordon insisting how he must be bound to wheels of fire (NB: substituting Dale Earnhardt here is NOT a good idea) 
• for 3M, an ad starring John Wayne Bobbitt, confidently asserting that once you've Scotched the snake, you haven't killed it
• for Nair, feature an elderly Mediterranean man pointing toward his wife and shouting, "Look on her: look, her lips, / Look there, look there!"  (Er, choose your own definition of lips.)
• for McDonald's, a canine and apple-pie bearing Anthony Hopkins begging, with mischievious eyes, "Will't please you, eat?" 
• for the ACLU, offer Johnnie Cochrane, glove on hand, asserting that now, indeed, is the time for Gods to stand up for bastards (or, alternately, Pat Robertson)
• for Republican congressional candidates, the probably overly-erudite slogan, "A natural perspective that is and is not."  Note:  Must feature a middle-aged white man staring angrily at his local opponent.  Alternately, offer same middle-aged white-man snarling about how long the quality of his mercy has been severely strained
• for ING Direct, have that snotty Pete Postlethwaite imitator remind us how neither a borrower nor a lender must be
• for Kleenex, star an advising Bill Clinton extending the product in question and insisting to a faceless brunette, shaking her head, "The handkerchief!  The handkerchief!"
• for Jack Daniels, a toothless redneck in bar, watching a couple leave, affirming that it may take away fromt he performance, but at least it gives the inspiration
• for MADD, a middle-aged soccer mom reminding everyone how she must, fervently, be set against their merriment
• for Palmolive:  "When all the perfumes of Arabia just won't do...."
• and for DeBeers: "Or else the rest will be silence." 

Feel free to offer your own suggestions in the comments.  The spirit (?) of Ken Lay will thank you.  Try not, however, to do anything about poop being burnished gold.

The Trouble From Here

Yeah, what the f@ck are you lookin' at?
For the record, as I add this the American President is speaking before his lunch with Prime Minister Harper. He is doing so in a way that evinces all too well the same reaction I have to an oral presentation by an undergradling that began preparing it two minutes beforehand. On the other hand, he makes Harper sound like a modern Cicero, which surely can't hurt Mr Harper one bit.

But, oh how Canadian, as the American President has noted: the first congratulation on Mr Bush's birthday today came from the Canadian Press.

Hayakawa's Regret

    One of the perverse things about updating this blog at this time of morning is that the only non-news show to be found is Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.  Its ridiculousness, of course, is (appropriately) legendary, and so hardly needs further remark here.  Even letting it air in the background, however, does incur a degree of physical danger.  As I have been reminded, it is profoundly imprudent to sip scalding hot coffee when, at any time, Semi-Known-Available-Asian-Actor might mutter something impossibly risible right into the camera.  I always pity the SKAAA after I wipe the accidental spray from my beard and shirt.  The SKAAA is usually some poor chap like Mako or Soon Tek-Oh or James Hong, a M*A*S*H alum stuck taking any part that comes along because Hollywood hardly offers him any better.  This morning's victim was George Takei, no stranger to televised shite, but for whom I still felt intense sympathy--- after I had wiped the coffee out of my nose. 

 

    Sure, Takei's no Toshiro Mifune or Tatsuya Nakadai, but my heart momentarily went out to him, much as it might for a colleague reduced to swigging vodka from a paper bag in some darkened alley.  SKAAAs are a pitiable lot, seldom getting decent parts, and often in those instances when parts demand venerable Asian actors, Hollywood has tended to think to itself, "Gee, we need a Brit to play this part!"  See the classically unconscionable casting of John Gielgud as Chang in the 70s Lost Horizon.  Or, rather, don't.  You'll not forgive me if you do.  See even, dare I say it, Alec Guinness in the fifties "comedy" Majority of One.  

      Let us consider, for example, poor Keye Luke, Master Po from the original Kung Fu series, was in the film industry for 55 years and never really got past being a SKAAA.  Most of my readers will know him only as Mr. Wing from the Gremlins movies, which is in itself quite sad.  Asian actors in North America just aren't going to get the chances to cultivate renown or respect as they age in the same ways that, say, Gene Hackman or Morgan Freeman have had.  The older they get, the more they will simply become SKAAAs, interchangeable and largely anonymous, except perhaps to have the odd Baby-Boomer say, "Oh, yeah, wasn't he on M*A*S*H?"  Sure, there will be brief flirtations with Chow Yun-Fats and Jet Lis every now and again, but those flirtations are sporadic and fleeting.  The only exceptions here, really, are Mifune and Bruce Lee, but the latter died young and the former stayed primarily in Japanese films that happened to find markets here, namely the Kurosawa classics.  My female readers may note that I haven't mentioned any actresses in all this.  I don't simply because the actresses have generally been even more abominably treated.   Let me put it simply: Is there, in North America, an Asian Maggie Smith or Angela Lansbury, or even, heaven forefend, Susan Sarandon?   Frankly, I'd love to see a Helen Mirren.

 

    It happens, coincidentally enough that I write this in the same week that I watched The Bridge On The River Kwai again.  One of its stars, the stalwart Sessue Hayakawa, is reputed to have said that his one ambition was to play a hero.  He never did, even though he tragically turned down the role that made Rudolph Valentino a legend.  Hayakawa's predicament, however, remains largely typical for Asian actors who don't get routed through chop-socky flicks with shoestring budgets.  There's something more than a bit sad about that, so relatively little having changed over the decades.  There remains the stable of SKAAAs, most treated pretty scuzzily and trapped in stereotypes guised as parts.  I wonder what Mr. Hayakawa would have to say about that.

     Somehow, I doubt he'd shoot coffee through his nose.

     FOLLOWUP:    It occurred to me that to post as I did without art was, in effect, to create my own SKAAA-type error, reducing these actors to generic types. So I have since added the few pics above Misters Takei, Luke and Hayakawa. Odd to note, though, the general dearth of pictures of these actors on the web that are NOT connected to Star Trek. Oy vey.