"At Last" It's Over

After a week of coverage of the Obama inauguration, I have reached a few conclusions. One is that the fact that this year's inauguration is ranked second behind the first Reagan inauguration probably says more for the proliferation of on-line alternatives to viewing Obama's inauguration than it does for Reagan's popularity at that time. Another is that I wasn't crazy when I thought something was out of sync with the piano. Turns out the classical combo we heard on TV was a recording, made to cover the fact that A: Priceless string instruments can't be miked in a 20 mph -10 degree wind chill, and B: Priceless string instruments turn into marzipan in a -10 degree wind chill. Still, the musicians put on their best game faces.

"Come on, Izzy. Swing it."

And, after a week of breathless coverage from Entertainment Tonight, Insider, Inside Hollywood, Hollywood Insider, Inside the Insider Inside Hollywood, etc... If I never hear the first two notes of Beyonce's rendering of "At Last" for the rest of my life, I'll be grateful.

Insider averaged an "At Last" once every 5.7 minutes, according to the annoyance level indicator in master control of WLIO, putting it in the "yellow" category. That figure is slightly misleading, as it doesn't account for the clustering of "At Last" occurrences in certain segments of the show. Teasers, those little pieces of the show that start with the words, "Coming up..." comprised the highest number of "At Last" incidents with a weighted average of 2 per tease. A teaser can run at an on-air duration of up to 93 seconds, and since the entire pre-intro portion of the show is a teaser, plus one for the lead-in before each of the 5 commercial breaks, a second method of measuring repetitive sound clips is utilized for overall annoyance factoring. Thus "At Last" scored a whopping 8.6 on the Ronco Annoyance Ratings System. (The Ronco Scale runs from 1 to 10, with a 9 being ranked as "pissed off," and a 10 being the point where the average viewer throws the remote at the TV and actually resorts to speaking with her spouse.) To put that into perspective, Geico commercials typically score a 6.7, CGI blobs of talking mucus rank a 5.4, "Viva Viagra" clocks in at 7.3, and Rosie O'Donnell doing anything rings the bell at 9.1.

(Surprisingly, the ShamWow guy only comes in at 4.8, although I'm still trying to figure out why I'm hearing room echo if he's wearing a head-mounted mike.)

Entertainment Tonight stayed in the green, barely, with an "At Last" average of once every 10.3 minutes, and a Ronco of 7.8, putting it squarely in the "WTF is up with this?" category.

Congress has formed a subcommittee to look into this practice. It appears, as the law is today, a bona fide news program can use a short clip of a copyrighted song for the purpose of setting a context for the news story. For example: when Bo Diddly died, any news program could use a clip of a Bo Diddly song without paying ASCAP or BMI as long as it was used in conjunction with the news story.

In my opinion, the problem here isn't in the length of an audio clip a bona fide news program can use. It's the fact that Entertainment Tonight is considered a bona fide news program that worries me.

A Band Out of Tune with America

If our new president wants to unify this country, if he wants to dissolve the partisan divide that threatens to stagnate this nation, he might do well by targeting AM Radio.

It was an amazing dichotomy on January 20. While millions watched the inauguration on television, Rush Limbaugh pounded away at his golden microphone saying he hopes Barak Obama fails. Sean Hannity's callers berated the benediction as racist. (He was definitely Old School, I'll give you that.) And I'm sure the criticisms rang on through the night, but this blogger's life span is too short to waste listening for that long.

Now don't get me wrong. I strongly believe in our right to be critical of our president. I'm not going to agree with everything Obama says and does. I didn't agree with everything Reagan did, and I certainly didn't agree with Clinton every time. And I honestly have doubts that W should be allowed to drive a car. But those are my opinions. To be knowledgeable of our government and the ways of the world - in other words, to be educated - is in my opinion the first tenet of being an American. Using that knowledge as the foundation for judging our leadership is the second. Put another way: pay attention to something other than your fantasy basketball lineup, and you'll have the ability to see beyond the political rhetoric.

Still, I couldn't help but feel that the majority of AM radio stations were out of touch with the weight of the events taking place that day. While thousands of people from across the country crowded the Mall in Washington for an historic inauguration speech, an event that in days past would've been broadcast by many of these stations with neutrality and dignity, AM radio stations railed like an elderly man demanding that those rotten kids stay off his lawn. His name in Husein! He botched the oath! He'll raise your taxes! He's gonna let the terrorists run free!

In the 1930's Walter Winchell had America's ear, tickling it with salacious factoids about the rich and famous for an audience new to fast paced electronic journalism. By the 1950's Winchell was yesterday's news. His staccato delivery, like that of a child who can't wait to tattle to his mother that he just caught his brother sneaking a cookie, was replaced by the smooth and more researched tones of Edward R. Murrow, Dave Garroway, and eventually Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley. When Winchell provided the narration to "The Untouchables" he did so as something of a self parody, a voice evocative of a bygone era. An antique with no purpose beyond its own nostalgia. We need a new version of "The Untouchables" for Rush to narrate.

If AM radio stations have nothing better to add to the national conversation than self-promotional rhetoric and borderline hate mongering, then perhaps it's best that this outmoded form of broadcasting be relegated to the same fate as analog television. Only without the digital conversion. Give the frequencies to local fire departments and law enforcement. That would be a real service to this country.

Fearing Fear Itself

My fellow Americans, readers from abroad, and all the ships at sea, let me assure you that even as economic storm clouds gather, we have nothing to fear. I am convinced that our economy will be back on track sooner than later. My evidence: I just spent a hundred dollars on a paper shredder.

We were in a certain big box chain store to buy refills for my ball point pen and a cartridge for my printer, when my wife spotted the paper shredders on display. "We need one of those," she proclaimed. "Or else somebody will steal our identity."

"They can have my identity," I said reflecting on my last family reunion.

"I'm serious," my wife said. "Crooks go through garbage cans and find things with account numbers and then run through your savings."

"It'll be a short trip," I said thinking of my last checking account statement. "If I were going to steal somebody's identity, I'd hit Beverly Hills, or Malibu, or someplace like that. I wouldn't waste my time looking through garbage cans in [dumpy mid-Ohio town where the general population thinks Freddie Mac was a hit for Martha and the Vandellas.] Get a grip."

"We're buying a shredder. I'm not taking any chances. Should we get a number three, or step up to a number four?"

Now I didn't know this, but shredders come in categories, ranging from numbers 1 to 6. It's true. A number 1 is for "general document destruction" and cuts the paper about the same way I could with scissors. A number 4 is for "destruction of documents of a sensitive nature vital to a company's existence" and creates little cross-cut paper diamonds that scatter all over the place when you try to empty the shredder in an apparent attempt to give industrial spies something of a fighting chance. Finally, a number 6 shredder makes shredded wheat out of "top secret documents of a high security level." Maybe I'm wrong, but if I'm working for Homeland Security and I'm shopping for a something to shred those plans to the nuclear power plant, I'm sure as hell not going to look for it at Wal-Mart.

We agreed that a number 3 suited out needs. (Turns "confidential documents" into thin strips the cats can chase all over the house.)

Now before you blame us baby boomers, or tweeners, or lost generation punks on feeding the consumerism gravy train, let me set you straight. I did not want a shredder. This wasn't some impulse purchase based on an emotional need to fill a void in my empty, pathetic life. That's what blogging is for. No. This purchase was to satiate a media-fed frenzy for a product I really didn't want, and I'm not entirely convinced I need. In other words, it was bought out of fear. And as long as there is an Oprah or Dr. Phil or a local reporter with late breaking News You Can Use on the channel that is On Your Side, there will always be a new danger lurking around every corner, ready to strike. And there will always be a product we can buy to calm that fear, whether it's testing kits for radon, green tea to prevent cancer, or a gun in case Obama overrules the Second Amendment in his first hundred days. Give me something to fear, and I'll buy the product to squelch that fear.

By the way, the new shredder works just fine. When we got it home, the first thing we shredded in the new shredder was the credit card receipt for the new shredder.

Not Again

Today's post was sparked by a comment posted by Randy to a previous blog I wrote, "Truth or Consequences," about another fake memoir. You would think everybody would've learned a lesson from that.

Nope. It's happened again.

Herman Rosenblat's alleged memoir "Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived" was found wanting. At the center of the controversy is the probability of a young girl throwing apples over the fence into a concentration camp to the boy who would, years later, by sheer coincidence, become her husband. Historians, and fellow Schlieben camp survivors say it never happened. Furthermore, experts say a civilian of any age would never have been allowed to approach a fence. (This strains the credibility of "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" as well, but at least that story is supposed to be fiction.) Of course, Oprah put the story on her show with scant fact checking. That led to a book deal with Berkley with equally scant verification, and apparently a movie is still on the way.

Before I get to Randy's comment, I'd like to state first off that Oprah has a background in television journalism. She knows better. Don't blame it on your staff, Oprah. May I suggest from this point on she stick to interviewing Tom Cruise and talking about her waistline.

Now, on to Randy's comment. He says:

The Rosenblat story is so sad. Why is Atlantic Pictures making a film based on a lie? Why didn't Oprah check the story out before publicizing it, especially after James Frey and given that many bloggers like Deborah Lipstadt said in 2007 that the Rosenblat's story couldn't be true.

Genuine love stories from the Holocaust do exist. My favorite is the one about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt - the beautiful young art student who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the children's barracks at Auschwitz to cheer them up. This painting became the reason Dina and her Mother survived Auschwitz. After the end of the war, Dina applied for an art job in Paris. Unbeknownst to Dina, her interviewer was the lead animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They fell in love and got married. It's such a romantic love story. Another reason I love Dina's story is the tremendous courage she had to paint the mural in the first place. Painting the mural for the children caused her to be taken to Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. She thought she was going to be gassed, but bravely she stood up to Mengele and he made her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber.

Dina's story is also verified to be true. Some of the paintings she did for Mengele in Auschwitz survived the war and are at the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum. The story of her painting the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the children's barrack has been corroborated by many other Auschwitz prisoners, and of course her love and marriage to the animator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the Disney movie after the war in Paris is also documented.

Why wasn't the Rosenblatt's story checked out before it was published and picked up to have the movie made?? I would like to see true and wonderful stories like Dina's be publicized, not these hoax tales that destroy credibility and trust.

Thanks, Randy. Of course, Dina and her husband had something in common in dealing with raging anti-Semitics. The animator she married was Arthur "Art" Babbitt, who dared to join the Screen Cartoonists Guild in defiance to Walt Disney. Walt's firing of Art on the 28th of May, 1940 triggered a strike by about 300 artists at the Disney studio the next day. There was court action, a rehiring, on-the-job harassment, and a resignation before Art moved on, and even then Walt couldn't let it go. Disney ordered Babbitt's name be removed from the credits of the films he had worked on. (I can't find evidence that this decree was ever enforced. It would've been expensive, not to mention illegal under current law.) Convinced that the Jews and the Communists were in cahoots against him, Disney led the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals to eventually shut down a production of Finnian's Rainbow, the most daring animated feature of the 1950's you'll never see, on which Babbitt and fellow former Disney malcontent Vladimir Tytla were preparing. Read Michael Barrier's interview with Babbitt for further insight.

Dana is still in there fighting the good fight. Read this New York Times piece about her struggle to get her paintings back. (You don't need to register, but I highly recommend it anyway.)

Then go pick up a copy of Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak's picture book Brundibar, and look up where the story came from. Children daring to create fiction that speaks the truth. Now that's literature.