Priorities, or lack thereof

OK, here's the deal.

Viacom is at fault over this dispute with DirecTV. I think it will be fixed. Matter of time.

But, here's the point:

Why do we care?

Don't get me wrong. When GSN (it used to be called the Game Show Network until every channel decided to go Orwellian on us) abruptly stopped showing re-runs of "What's My Line?" a few years ago, I threatened to say goodbye to pay TV forever.

Then the sun came up and I went to work.

Last night on the CBS Evening News, I saw a story about civil war in Syria. I saw a story about a guy WHO HAS NO LEGS and yet climbed Kilimanjaro.

This is an election year. (Granted, a boring one.) The next four years are as uncertain as anything we have faced in 40 years.

I know a fellow, great guy, talented musician, who takes chemo for cancer and has to deal with its aftermath every day.

What?! Your child can't watch Nick Jr.? Here's an idea: hand the kiddo a book. Last time I looked, library cards are free.

Or, how about this: switch the station to PBS...

Please excuse me if I don't get too worked up about losing a few television channels, most of which I never watch anyway.

Seems like this "uproar" says something about our priorities, or lack thereof...

Here's to a new year

Hi gang.

Hope you all are doing well. I took a little blogging break around the Christmas holiday and am now back to reality. Here's to getting through the first five-day week in awhile...

We had a good time over the weekend. I took Jenn to Ruth's Chris for her birthday. Talk about good. Talk about expensive!

But that's OK because it was a special occasion and the food really was something special. The filet was fantastic.

Saturday night Jenn's mom fixed cube steaks and roast. Winning!

Last night, my mom bought a Louis' spaghetti family pack for Jenn's third birthday dinner of the weekend. Ca-ching!

Today I'm going to go on one of my little rants. Most of you know how much I enjoy popular culture from yesteryear. One of my all-time favorite programs was the witty, urbane CBS game show of the 1950s and '60s, "What's My Line?"



GSN aired reruns for years. It was 30 minutes of genteel fun, a reminder of a time when celebrities didn't by and large dress and/or act like slobs and game show panelists and moderators could think and talk in complete sentences.

For some reason GSN suddenly stopped showing the reruns in 2009. And then, out of nowhere, they teased us around Christmas 2010 and Christmas 2011 by airing a week's worth of episodes around the holidays. You don't know how much I wish they'd bring this little gem back. Often it was an oasis in the desert, a diamond among the dregs.

Not all of us want to see Kim and Khloe in New York, whoever the hell they are, or the cast of "Jersey Shore," whatever the hell that is.

Classic game show brings early present

Got an early Christmas present the other night.

My friend, the Giant Rat of Knoxville, called to say that the classic game show "What's My Line?" has returned to the GSN lineup after an absence of a year and a half.

Whoo-whoo!

I started watching the series when I had the flu in early 2008 and couldn't sleep. Caught one of the 3 a.m. broadcasts and quickly became hooked. The game was rather simple. What made "What's My Line?" engaging was the show's erudite panel.

For years, the lineup included Hearst Newspapers gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, stage and screen star Arlene Francis and sophisticated book publisher (and Random House co-founder) Bennett Cerf. Guest panelists included former "Tonight Show" host Steve Allen and comedian Fred Allen. The show's host was commentator John Daly, most famous for announcing the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and FDR's death in 1945 on CBS radio.

The best part of the show was the weekly mystery guest, usually an entertainment personality, who would try to stump the (blindfolded) panel. Mystery guests can include everybody from Ted Williams to Eleanor Roosevelt to Ricky Nelson.

What strikes me about the show is the intelligence of the panel. Were it airing today the celebrities would be a bunch of bumbling idiots (just look at the later syndicated version of "What's My Line"). After watching a few episodes you're also reminded just how much we once valued the English language.

Set your DVR some night at 3 a.m. (Eastern) and catch this true gem from yesteryear. Thanks for bringing this back, GSN!

"What's My Line?", Alan Alda and other lessons I have learned...

Pull up a seat and order whatever you'd like. I'll buy the first round if you'll listen to a little story.

Gotta tell you about one of my heroes, the late, great publisher, Random House co-founder Bennett Cerf. There is no explainable reason that a guy crowdin' 31 should even know Cerf's name. What can I say? I'm a crazy kid.

I've been in love with books -- and words -- since an early age. I think I've told you about that before. A neighbor gave me a "Hardy Boys" mystery when I was about 8 and I've never been the same since.

Anyway, it was through reading about the literary life that I first came across Cerf -- his professional relationship with troubled author Truman Capote, his founding of Random House with Donald Klopfer, his reputation as the epitome of the New York literati during that scene's 1950s golden age.

Then, it was a flu back in the winter, and the inspiration of my friend the Rat, that got me watching the re-runs of the classic game show "What's My Line?", on which Cerf was a regular panelist. Yes, I thought. This is the life I wish I had led -- that of an urbane New Yorker, publishing books, hobnobbing with celebrities, appearing weekly on a popular television series in which I could show off my sophisticated wit.

Alas, I'm merely a somewhat educated feller from Halls who likes to read books. It took me a long time to become comfortable -- and, indeed, happy -- with that fact.

(By the way, I read a fantastic review highlighting a new oral history of the life of another famous literary personality, George Plimpton, that I'm going to try to find during the holidays. It looks great.)

So as the sun goes down on a busy Monday, I'm fighting my usual battle with the inability to unwind, reading Alan Alda's first memoir, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed." (I just typed "Never Have Your God Stuffed" before hitting the backspace key. Wonder if that is dyslexia or a Freudian slip?)

Alda has long been a favorite. He is witty. He is a multi-talented actor, director and writer. He played another hero, Hawkeye Pierce, on my favorite TV sitcom, "M*A*S*H."

And, believe it or not, Alan Alda once taught me something about women.



Alda made a name for himself in the 1970s for his staunch feminism. Critics complained that the later episodes of "M*A*S*H" became so bogged down in his personal philosophy that it lost its way. Too preachy, they said. Here's why I disagree:

The episode was called "Hey, Look Me Over." I believe it aired during the last season. Hawkeye keeps ignoring Nurse Kellye. She sends him some not so subtle hints of her interest in him, but Hawk keeps his eye on the more nubile, but somewhat vapid, nurses.

Kellye finally lets him have it. Afterward, Hawkeye observes a tender moment that shows Kellye's personality, in which she lovingly cares for a wounded soldier. He realizes what a fool he's been and goes to Kellye's tent to ask for a date.

But, guess what? She's got another man -- and leaves Hawkeye with his foot firmly planted in his mouth.

"Hey, Look Me Over" taught me a valuable lesson. It's a cliche to describe it this way, but the gist is don't judge a book by its cover -- or, perhaps more appropriately, everything that glitters is not gold.

Life experience should have told me this is true. But it took a 30-minute episode of a popular but thoughtful television series to throw my worldview at that time on its ear.

I don't know what Bennett Cerf and Alan Alda have in common, or even why I was thinking about them tonight. But, I think in their own way, they taught me two things I needed to learn.

One is not to spend so much time envying someone else's life that you fail to realize the richness of your own journey. The other is to never fall into the trap of seeing only with your eyes at the exclusion of your brain -- and your heart.

Not bad for two famous people I've never met, huh?

Blast from the past

I'm blaming this on that Sam Sheppard book.

Finally finished it, by the way. Good read. I'm convinced that Dr. Sheppard didn't kill his wife. Little good it does him, nearly 40 years dead, three trials and 54 years after the fact.

Read the book if you're into such things. It's called "The Wrong Man" by James Neff, and is one fine piece of reporting.

And so I've landed back in the '50s these past few days, a place I've liked to visit since watching "Happy Days" as a kid. Yeah, I know that show is an illusion. This is my story. Let me dream.

I regularly watch "What's My Line?", the classic TV game show, which airs late at night on GSN. Currently airing episodes were originally broadcast in 1955. Things were better, things were worse, but one thing is undeniable: we were a more literate country then.

Take Bennett Cerf. There's no way an urbane publisher would appear on a TV game show today. They'd find some vapid blond celebrity instead. I seriously doubt if a well-known columnist like Dorothy Kilgallen would be included today, either.

Late last night, I watched a few episodes of that classic '50s comedy, "Ozzie and Harriet." I lost myself in its innocence, but was also intrigued by a few things.

People have an image of early TV sitcoms as being these neat little fantasies in which the father comes home, puts on a sweater, and solves the family's problems in 30 minutes. But, guess what? Ozzie was portrayed as a likable dolt, the joke almost always on him. He had no obvious source of income, and seemed to just hang around the house a lot. Oh, it was innocent, but David and Rick, the two sons, fought like all real-life siblings fight.

Rick was my favorite part of the show. He was a precocious kid in the early episodes, looking scrubby-clean in his crew cut. As a teenager, he became a real-life teen idol, and many of his songs were woven into the series. ("Stood Up" was the hit on the episodes I screened from Netflix last night.)

Of course, this notion of the 1950s as an suburban idyll overlooks the problems of the era -- segregation, repression, blandness, Communist witch hunts, a whole bunch of other stuff. Heck, the Sheppard trial tells you that. The good doctor was an adulterer, if not a murderer. Nobody was perfect in any era. Humans are basically always human. Just read Shakespeare.

But, it was a good place to land for a few minutes over the weekend. I don't care what you say, I still like that music better...

Behind the music

The internet is a funny animal. Really breathes new life into the old cliche that it’s a small world after all.

(Yikes, just got a Disney World flashback...sorry about that...don’t want that song bouncing around in my head for days.)

After posting last Thursday about the Johnny Mathis song, "Yellow Roses on her Gown," I received a message from someone in Australia that is a friend of the woman who posted the Mathis clip on YouTube.

He says that the songwriter, Michael Moore (no, not that one!) wrote the song about his father, a lawyer that represented people who were victims of the McCarthy-era Communist witch hunts.

"As a result," he writes, "he was driven out of the profession by the right wing interests and took to farming and some limited legal work to make ends meet."

Wow, was all I could say. If this is indeed true, the revelation brings a deeper and even more tragic aspect to an already haunting piece of music.

I so hope that Mr. Moore, if he’s still alive, will surface one day and let us know more about his beautiful song.

Special thanks to Denis in Melbourne for this most interesting news.

Speaking of a small world, I was quite tickled to see that the guest on "What’s My Line," the classic game show I sometimes watch on GSN, from the Sunday, Nov. 9, 1952 episode, was one Ruth Marie Diamond from Knoxville, Tenn. The re-run aired last Saturday morning.

Turned out Ruth Marie Diamond’s line was that she was a United States Marine. What a hoot! I’d love to catch up with Ms. Diamond if she’s still hanging around East Tennessee. My guess is she would be in her 70s now.

Where's 'What's My Line?'

So, it's funny to think about in a way, but I've found myself missing TV at home this week, waiting on the satellite guy to come hook it up.

He can't get to it until Monday. Which I thought would be fine. I have plenty of DVDs to satisfy my tube cravings, plus I figured this would give me time to get caught up on that Teddy Roosevelt book I've been neglecting.

And, sure, it's OK. But I find myself missing little things.

Back when I had the flu, I couldn't sleep one night and got into watching re-runs of the classic 1950s-60s game show "What's My Line?" My friend, who is known as the Giant Rat of Knoxville, about the same time showed me a TiVOed copy of a particular episode featuring former Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.

I quickly became hooked. The game was rather simple. What made "What's My Line?" engaging was the show's erudite panel.

For years, the lineup included noted columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, stage and screen star Arlene Francis and sophisticated book publisher (and Random House co-founder) Bennett Cerf. Guest panelists included former "Tonight Show" host Steve Allen and comedian Fred Allen. The show's host was commentator John Daly, most famous for announcing the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and FDR's death in 1945 on CBS radio.

The best part of the show was the weekly mystery guest, usually an entertainment personality, who would try to stump the (blindfolded) panel. Since I've been watching the re-runs, I've seen everybody from Gloria Swanson to Phil Rizzuto.

The Rat called last night to report that former Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver was the guest on last night's episode. The show airs nightly on GSN at 3 a.m. (Eastern).

And, yeah, I miss sports and the nightly news and XM radio and all the usual suspects. But I guess it says something about me that I miss those grainy black-and-white game show re-runs most.

Maybe I was born too late after all.