The title of this blog entry is a direct quote from this week's episode of Lost, the TV show that I have declared to be the best program on Planet Earth. I won't bother trying to explain the meaning behind the quote... It would be lost on you non-Losties anyway. However, I will say the quote has a deeper meaning for me personally as I go through my current state of unemployment. The one constant I have been hearing since my position was eliminated is that "for every door that's closed, another one opens", or "there is life after WMAL" or "everything happens for a reason". I have been using those phrases as my mantra for the past 10 weeks now, to little apparent effect. If positive change is indeed my destiny, it's taking it's sweet ass time getting here! Perhaps destiny IS a fickle bitch!
My most trusted news source, The Onion, is reporting this morning that the US Capitol rotunda was smashed by a foul ball off the bat of the Nationals' Ryan Zimmerman.... Of course, this story is just a joke! How can you tell? The article says 32,457 people were at the game! Those Onion writers! Such comics!
Back in 1976, when I was 15 years old and girls were nothing but a fantasy, I spent my afternoons glued to the tube watching Chuck Barris' GONG Show. The amateur "talent" show was harmless and silly, but just like with today's reality TV fare, an admission of being an actual fan was comparable to telling your friends that you also liked to drool and wet your bed.
Well, guess what, boys and girls? The Gong Show is making a comeback! More from Variety:
Comedy Central is reviving Chuck Barris' "The Gong Show," with comedian Dave Attell as host. Cable net has ordered eight half-hour segs of the skein, which is set to premiere July 17. "The Gong Show" will air weekly at 10:30 p.m. in tandem with new reality TV spoof "Reality Bites Back" at 10. Gameshow vet Andrew Golder will exec produce "The Gong Show" for Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Prods. and Sony Pictures TV, which owns the Barris canon.
Like the original, the new-model "Gong Show" will feature a revolving panel of celebrity judges weighing in on eight to 10 offbeat amateur acts in each episode.
Original skein, which aired from 1976-78 on NBC's daytime lineup and in primetime syndication from 1976-80, was hosted by producer Barris and featured such regulars as Gene-Gene the Dancing Machine (aka one of the show's stagehands) and the Unknown Comic (aka a guy with a paper bag on his head). A syndie revival had a short run in the 1988-89 season.
Attell is known to Comedy Central auds for hosting the series "Insomniac With Dave Attell." Late last year he toplined an HBO spesh, "Captain Miserable."
I'll be interested to see what a 21st century Gong show will look like, but there's no way it'll match the wackiness of the original... Here's a clip of my favorite recurring segment - Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine...
I may have mentioned before in this missive that Mrs. Matthews is technologically challenged. Several years ago, when I wanted to buy her a digital camera, she resisted mightily. She was far more comfortable with the idea of continuing to take her rolls of 35mm film up to CVS, wait two days and get back an envelope stuffed with twin prints that she could then quickly stuff in the nearest drawer, never to be seen again.
I am now proud to say, however, that Robin has acclimated to her camera, and she gleefully shoots pictures with reckless abandon. In fact, she has more than 300 snapshots on her camera now - and that number is growing because she has no idea how to delete any of them. She also doesn't know how to download them to the computer. She forces me to do the job instead!
I have been protesting against this for some time, of course. Robin has a Master's Degree in education, so she can darn well figure out how to maintain a digital camera. But her proposed solution to the problem is certifiably 20th century. She says she can just take her camera's memory card to CVS, and have the magic Kodak machine print out her pictures (even twin prints!) there! If she runs out of space on the memory card, she can just buy another one!
Fast forward to this morning... Robin needed to download some pictures to our computer for work purposes. I forced her to do the job herself, which was a big mistake. The 2-minute chore turned into a 20-minute computer lesson as Robin successfully downloaded the files, but then promptly lost them on the hard drive. I found the files, and also introduced the Missus to the phenomenon of dragging-and-dropping files and folders. Have mercy on her. She spent her learning-computers-in-the-workplace years raising babies instead...
Still, I sometimes think my wife doesn't need Windows OR a husband... She needs a HAL 9000... a computer that does as it's told!
Many of you have had the pleasure (or occasional displeasure) of meeting my older son, 14-year-old Brad. I only say displeasure because, as much as I love him, Brad has an obnoxious streak that can sometimes run 24/7. He will take a mildly funny joke and run it straight into the ground... and then some. And then some MORE. It's exhausting. In his defense, I must admit that ol' Brad doesn't fall far from the tree. I look at him and see myself when I was his age, and it gives me a whole new appreciation for the power of teenage hormones. It's almost enough to make me want to apologize to my family for putting up with me!
It's amazing as a parent to watch your children grow, and to see how much they emulate you whether you want them to or not. Shortly after I began this blog, Brad decided to start a journal of his own, called, fittingly enough, The Obnoxious Report. The blog is a sometimes-fascinating look at the world through teenage eyes. I have had to go back a couple of times and require Brad to remove some objectionable material, but for the most part, I think he's doing a fine job.
This proud Dad sees a young man who is developing his own thoughts and finding his own strong voice. It's easy - sometimes too easy - to disregard what young people have to say. But Brad has opinions - real, self-vetted opinions - and he's using his blog to share some of them. I find his latest entry to be particularly timely - it's about the election. Not the presidential one - the Sherwood High School variety. Enjoy! (And Brad - good job!)
When we were traveling on vacation in California two years ago, Robin and I chuckled over a bumper sticker we saw. It read "God Bless Our Stupid President". That's really how I'm feeling about our Presidential candidates right about now. Hillary wants to give Americans a gas tax holiday, and allow the average driver to save about 70 bucks this summer - enough to take the family to Outback once. Meanwhile, Barack wants to issue another stimulus check.
Look - Lord knows I could really use some extra cash right now, but how much longer can we really go on looking the other way? Our probable future President, whoever he or she may be, wants us to pleasure ourselves, and not worry about the fact that we're shooting ourselves as a nation in the foot with every extra dollar the nation borrows in the name of economic stimulus. Any extra money rebated back to Americans isn't coming from some secret bank account - it's yet more national debt.
Meanwhile, to make matters ever worse, we must worry about what this kind of political thinking says about us as a nation. Clinton and Obama are now just openly pandering - there's not even really a shred of dignity left between the two of them... And yet, we're supposed to go into a voting booth in November, hold our noses and make a choice? God help us. And don't for a minute think all of this is some sort of oblique endorsement of John McCain. He's out of the spotlight for the moment because he can enjoy watching the other two beat each other's brains out, but I'm sure McCain will have ample time to shame and embarrass himself down the road!
I think perhaps the real villain in all of this is the election process itself. I used to make a joke in the newsroom that, because of the length of the presidential campaign, no one stands a chance of still being liked by the time election day rolls around... Joe Gibbs and Jesus Christ could be the candidates, and we'd still be holding our noses in the voting booth!
The good news at the end of the day is that Hillary and Barack's plans to give away more cash will likely be vetoed by President Bush if either bill lands on his desk. God Bless Our Stupid President, indeed!
Anyone with school-age kids has probably noticed that children - at least in Montgomery County - don't take NEARLY as many field trips as they did when we were kids. They're too busy studying to take standardized tests! When I was a kid, I don't think a year went by, for example, when my class didn't go to at least 2 or 3 Smithsonian museums. Neither of my kids has ever been to the Mall on a school trip, period.
One other place we used to go regularly was Gettysburg PA, a quick 90 minute jaunt up Rt. 15 to the most famous of all Civil War battle sites. A "must-see" at Gettysburg was always a visit to the famous "electric map" - an auditorium that surrounded a room-size map of the Gettysburg battlefield. Using state-of the art 1960's technology, the map used different colored light bulbs to show the movements of the union and confederate troops, while an uber-serious professorial voice narrated the intricate 3-day battle's movements.
This electric map presentation used to take about a half-hour, giving the audience the opportunity to reflect on the bloodshed of brother-against-brother combat in the deadliest single battle of the Civil War... or to give you some nice quiet time to catch a nap.
Love it or hate it, the electric map is now a thing of the past. The National Park Service is on a kick to "restore" Gettysburg back to its Civil War era condition, and that began with closing down the old visitor center where the electric map resides. That building is in the middle of where the action was, so to speak. An effort to save the electric map is underway, but in all honesty, I think they oughta let the old girl go to tourist trap heaven. In our short attention span world, no 10 year old kid is going to be satisfied with a half hour light bulb show when CG graphics and fast talk can tell the story in less time with more action.
Fortunately, another "tacky" Gettysburg attraction of my youth remains open just across the street from the electric map, on private property - The old National Civil War Wax Museum still exists, although it's undergone a name change in what I assume is a nod to 21st Century sensibilities. I'm sure someone out there is going to take offense at the sight of confederate soldiers or slaves immortalized in wax!
Sadly, I think the electric map has gone the way of pay phones, slide projectors and 8 track players... but thanks to the wonders of 21st Century technology, we'll always have our memories:
It all started at a 5,000 watt AM station in the nation's capital, where I filed away Steve and Eydie albums for Bill Trumbull. 25 years later, after making the transition to news - first as a street reporter and later as News Director - my position was eliminated. The dance card has plenty of vacancies now... Anyone wanna tango?
