Minor Grievance

About seven years ago now, Roger Ebert reviewed Woody Allen's film Anything Else. He didn't object, as I recall, to anything in the film itself; he was struck by how it was marketed. Anything Else, in case you don't remember, starred Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs. Allen himself was prominently featured in the film, but not in its trailer. In fact the only mention of him was at the end of the trailer, with a card: "From Woody Allen." Wrote Ebert at the time: "It's as if they have the treasure of a Woody Allen movie and they're trying to package it for the "American Pie" crowd."

I bring this up because I noticed a few parallels between the marketing of that film and the marketing by NBC of tonight's episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. America was given a not-dissimilar treasure: a very, very rare U.S. television appearance by Isabelle Huppert, that majestic French actor, whose performance I am still coming down from. And although Huppert was seen in the spots leading up to the broadcast, the announcer never mentioned her. I can only surmise that someone or other at NBC deemed Huppert's name too difficult for the announcer to pronounce. (It's YUPPAIR, for the curious.) The announcer, I noticed, navigated Sharon Stone's name with considerable dexterity. By the way, Stone is a very, very welcome sight on television. What a state of affairs for an American teevee drama in 2010 to find room for Isabelle Huppert and Sharon Stone and be effective and compelling television.

Another thing--during tonight's telecast, NBC took pains to tell us that Monday night will see only the season finale of Law & Order. I don't know what's more distressing: the cancellation of perhaps the best drama on television after twenty years, or the fact that NBC can barely bring itself to tell you that it's over. Do you think a moment of silence would be appropriate?

AUTHOR'S NOTE 5/20/10 1:17PM EDT: This piece was written a a bit of a frenzy--fourteen hours' distance and reading a few reviews lead me to this conclusion, and I think even Huppert herself would agree: If you're looking for the subtlety that has made Huppert a household name with housewives from Paris to the Pyrenees and everywhere in between, Law & Order: SVU is not the place to start. The Piano Teacher , in stark contrast, is a far more stark and subtle piece.

This revision also corrects the phonetic pronounciation of Huppert's name.

Victory Or Consequences

So I see that yet again, horse racing’s Triple Crown will remain vacant. Thirty-two years have elapsed since Affirmed won the Triple Crown. It has not happened in my lifetime; the last time it did, my mother was into her second trimester with me. I was thinking that maybe it’s time to retire this Triple Crown bullshit, because for one thing, horses like Secretariat, Citation and War Admiral do not come in bunches. God alone knows we’ve come close in my lifetime, but the cigar always seems to explode in our face. But I guess I don’t get a vote; among other things, horse racing needs a little drama attached to it, without which it wouldn’t make very compelling television. It would be little more than big animals owned by very, very wealthy men and ridden by very, very short men.

In the alternative, I propose that we raise the stakes of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes.

Here’s what we do: for the laypeople, we give one lucky spectator at Churchill Downs one million dollars if his horse wins. That fellow would go to Baltimore and get a chance at five million dollars if his chosen steed wins the Preakness. If his horse goes the mile-and-a-half around Belmont Park and wins the Belmont Stakes, that lucky, lucky son of a bitch wins fifty million dollars. And not only does Lucky keep every red cent, it’s all tax-free. You won’t find those odds with a scratch-off card at your local 7-Eleven. Now, for the owners of these gallant racehorses, if they believe so much in the odds and the hooves of those horses, they will be required to bet their entire fortune on the race. I don’t know about you, but there is an almost orgasmic satisfaction in thinking about some 76-year old man named Galen wandering the streets of Louisville in a dirty white seersucker jacket and matching handkerchief asking for spare change and having to explain to people that he lost his gin business over a horse that lost the Derby.

See how much more exciting sports would be if the results had consequences in the real world? In fact, this idea could spread. Admittedly, it would not and could not go too far. But over time, I have had a few more ideas:

In tennis: Not only must the tennis player serve the ball over the net, but through a ring of fire. Just once, I’d like to see Anna Kournikova feel heat other than her own.

How about the Final Four in college basketball, or the mythical, farcical national championship in college football? The winning school in the championship game gets more money for lab equipment and school texts, up to, let’s say, about ten million dollars. The losing school gets its funding cut off for one year, and all of its professors get immediately arrested and interred at a detention center in someplace like southeastern Nebraska for the same length of time. The higher the stakes, the more motivation and incentive the student athletes have. (Side note: I think the only reason there is a national championship game is that ESPN, in its never-ending quest for absolute world domination, desperately needs there to be. But that’s another dance for another girl.)

Methinks I’ve saved my best for last: The Super Bowl. About a year or so ago, I had an idea for a play that wrapped around this idea, but I never got it off the ground. Instead of the mayors of the cities of the teams betting lobsters, sushi and cheesesteaks, I’d like to see some real ramifications. The city whose team wins the Super Bowl should get enhanced Homeland Security protection for one year—more police, more and better emergency services, things along those lines, again for one year. As for the losing city, you know what I have in mind? Seventy-two hours of martial law. I mean, if the whole world’s going to be watching, wouldn’t you think that The National Football League would want you to enjoy the rough and tumble both on and off the field? After all, like ESPN, they’re launching a bid to take over the civilized world.

I guess all I’m doing with these flights of paranoid fantasy is pointing up how much I love baseball. Now that’s a sport. It’s not unpleasant, it’s romantic, you can exhale and enjoy it, knowing there’s almost always a tomorrow. Besides which, no civilized society ever crumbled because the Yankees lost.

A ROSE AMONG THORNS*

All I ever wanted to be

is a rose among thorns.

A glimmer of hope and

love amid the waste.

I was never meant to walk

in detritus, defoliant and dung.

I just want

that cobblestone street

where church bells are rung.

It's not in my nature to be

just a face in the crowd.

I never wanted to be

just one of the guys.

I'm not.

I never was.

I'll never be.

This is me.

My petals are too red

and smell too nice.

My wings flap too fast

and can elude

a million mice.

I close my eyes at night

and see a rose

growing too fast for

the thorns to pierce it.

I'm one in a million.

I'm unique as a unicorn.

I'm special as a snowflake.

I am me.

I'll always be.

*inspired by the song of the same name, adapted from "Gabriel's Oboe" by Ennio Morricone

Something Fishy


I envy fish.

Fish have no responsibilities
Except to survive.

I’ve never known a carp
That answered phones
Or to a boss.

Whoever heard of a dolphin
That needed to pay
The electric bill?

And every shark you ever meet
Can afford
To feed itself.

A fish never has to be told
What to do
Or where to go
By someone much younger.

A fish, you see,
Is supremely
And divinely
Free.

Fish shouldn’t have to swim
In tanks with glass walls.
They weren’t meant to.

Fish in the sea
Like the birds that you see
Are happy and joyful
And free.

I wish
That fish
Was me.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved

Ladies and Gentlemen, everything you ever wanted to know about the First Saturday in May is right here...

http://brianb.freeshell.org/a/kddd.pdf

ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

I don’t know why
There is so much pain in the world.
But there is.

I don’t know why
People suffer so much.
But they do.

People shoot guns, shoot heroin,
Take cocaine and money that isn’t theirs.
And I
Don’t understand why.

Why does this world so full
Of beautiful places and things
Also contain such pain, decay,
Rancor and rage?

It does not
Have to be
This way.

There is a life so much higher
Than any mere mortal can dream
Just waiting for us.

A life of love.
A life of peace.
A life of strength and joy.

A higher life,
A Heaven on Earth,
Is just waiting
For us.

Heaven is here.

If we want it.

Pledge Drives Suck!

I came home tonight, flicked on the teevee and tried to find something mildly tolerable while I ate the "food" from "Burger King". I found a very interesting documentary on PBS about Luciano Pavarotti. I was enraptured, entranced, remembering all the reasons I loved, and still love, Pavarotti. And then the phone number for my local public teevee station showed up on the screen. The spell was broken, and the program interrupted, by two people asking me in their most earnest voice to support the teevee station by pledging membership. Two hundred dollars they wanted to take away from me; in return, I could have the DVD of the Pavarotti Documentary and a two-CD set of his greatest performances that I could get for twenty dollars in any store, if I look hard enough.

Pledge drives suck.

Hear me now, believe me when I'm six feet under. Public broadcasting isn't going anywhere, folks, any more than classical music and opera and orchestras are going anywhere anytime soon. Let 'em hold all the "pledge drives" they want; let 'em hold hostages for all I care. But when those two words "pledge" and "drive" join forces, that's your cue to switch to another station. And don't get all excited about the phrase "membership campaign"; it's a mere euphemism. There is always, always, and always going to be a Sesame Street, Nova, Wild America on your teevee. And Pavarotti, Miles Davis, Renee Fleming, and Sarah Vaughan are always going to be as close as the low end of the FM dial. Nothing can ever happen to PBS or National Public Radio. That being said, I'd pay money never to have to hear Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and especially Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me ever again.

Pledge drives really suck.

Back to Pavarotti: When my bliss was interrupted, I could not help but notice that one of the two people asking me for my money was a lady named Midge Woolsey. Here's why I feel sorry for her: Until about seven months ago, because the station Midge works for, WQXR-FM in New York, was a commercial radio station, she never, to the best of my knowledge, had to partake of a pledge drive. Since WQXR has gone all the way up the dial from 96.3 to 105.9 and become a public radio station, Midge has now had to participate in a pledge drive in both teevee and in radio. What a shame. By the way, would it have been too much trouble, if my local teevee station was going to hold a pledge drive, to have somebody from my local teevee station beg, plead and grovel for money? This way, Midge Woolsey and the big chin she was with would never have to be bothered and I could listen to Pavarotti in peace.

Pledge drives really, really suck.