Category: Pop Culture

Byron’s TV Listings REPRINT

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What Columbus Indiana Watched On Television in Shades of Black and White

 

From April 3, 2021

G’day! Coming to you from somewhere on Rottnest Island, another weekend of spectacular TV! Just don’t ask us where we get it…

10:23 P.M.  Ch. 22  NEWS with The Three Stooges

Moe, Larry, and Curly deliver news, weather, pokes in the eye, and nyuk-nyuk-nyuks. Special guest: Bertrand Russell

10:30 P.M.  Ch. 31  ROUTE 216–Picaresque Cautionary Tale

Buzz and Fuzz finally manage to push their ancient Corvette past the 25-mph mark–and break into a parallel universe where socialism really works–for gigantic man-sized insects with a thirst for blood and fritters. Buzz: Pinky Lee   Fuzz: Bruno Sammartino  Big Bug: Prince Charles

27   Movie–Philosophical Reflections

“Momma Was a Crackerball!” (1997) The incredibly aged Bowery Boys have only two days to pull off a heist at Louie’s Soda Shop before a Bela Lugosi look-alike comes to collect their souls. Leo Gorcy, Huntz Hall. Lugosi Look-Alike: Dick Cavett. Old Man: Al Jolson.

18  SURVIVAL BOWLING

Can the celebrity contestants knock all the pins over before they release a noxious gas? Tonight’s guest bowlers: Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Una O’Connor, Dr. Joyce Brothers. Host: Tim McCarver. With Al Gore and his orchestra.

10:36 P.M.  Ch 44   OUR MISS FANGS–Situation Comedy

Wally Jumblatt (Soupy Sales) and his friends at Foogoo County Night School have to pass Miss Pikestaff’s course in Transylvanian Literature while avoiding her fangs–for this teacher is a vampire! Miss Pikestaff: Anne Blyth.  Pencilhead: Robert Young. Mr. Shotglass, the Principle: a medium-sized pumpkin.

Well, that’s that! We hope we have livened up your weekend.

REPRINT ‘The Least Surprising Poll Results in Human History’ (?)

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From November 7, 2022

 

Are these “the least surprising poll results in human history”? Could be!

According to an American Family Survey, unmarried liberal women have “the lowest levels of satisfaction with their lives and mental health” of any demographic studied (https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2022/11/05/poll-liberal-women-experience-worst-mental-health-of-all-demographics-n1643015).

Regular people, say the pollsters, are reinforced in their mental health by religion, marriage, and family; while liberals, especially liberal women, tend to come up short in those areas.

Also, unmarried liberal women tend to take Pandemic fear-mongering much more seriously than everybody else does. Well, that’s who’s still wearing the masks, isn’t it? We can see that for ourselves.

How do liberal men score for mental health? Fap! The article didn’t say. The few liberal men I know are as wacky as the women.

If Democrats lose big tomorrow in Election Day, we’re going to see intense liberal lunacy on display all over this land.

Question! Does liberalism make you crazy, or does being crazy make you a liberal?

What a Chump I Was in College REPRINT

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From November 1, 2014

While I was a college student, one of my favorite books was Hercules, My Shipmate by Robert Graves, a re-telling of the story of Jason and the Argonauts. So I was delighted when my wife gave me a copy of it for Christmas. It must’ve been 40 years or more since I’d read it last.

Many books and movies I liked when I was young, I still like now. Some I like even more, like The Lord of the Rings, Agatha Christie’s novels, and Peter Sellers in Never Let Go. And I’ve always enjoyed Robert Graves’ most famous novel, I, Claudius (although Jack Pullman’s screenplay for the I, Claudius TV series is even better). Naturally I expected to be delighted by Hercules, My Shipmate.

Everyone, I suppose, once knew someone whom they thought was the absolute bee’s knees. Then you lose touch with this person, make contact again 30 years later, and wind up asking yourself, “What did I ever see in him? He is a total putz!”

So it went with Hercules, My Shipmate. *Sigh* Mostly it was Robert Graves reconstructing and then wildly enthusing over the creepy paganism of pre-Classical Greece, complete with human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism.

What did I ever see in this? Could I really have been such a chump, back then?

Yes, college can be rather an overwhelming experience. It took me about 30 years to outgrow it, and a lot of people never outgrow it. The better to manipulate you, your professors convince your intellectually defenseless 19-year-old self that you’re a thousand times smarter than your parents and you don’t need any of their silly old stuff anymore–including all that Christianity business. Why, in no time at all, you’ll be as smart as one of these professors!

I look back on this and shudder.

REPRINT My Newswithviews Column, Nov. 7 (‘The March of Lunacy’)

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From November 7, 2019

Is there a state that’s short a governor?

I keep asking myself how long this crazy stuff can go on; and I don’t know the answer.

The March of Lunacy

Why do we have a “transgender” movement? Was there some kind of demand for it? Really? Why do you get kicked out of your job for saying only women can give birth to babies?

Why does the government tell you how many points your high school football team’s allowed to score? Why does the governor of New York insist there were no hurricanes until we came along with our SUVs and created Climate Change?

Who thinks it’s a good idea to keep the crazies in the driver’s seat?

Are They Trying to Tell Us Something? REPRINT

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From June 13, 2014

There are many dark places, these days, in Young Adult fiction. How many books for teens “celebrate” aberrant sexuality? How many get their young protagonists involved with pagan “gods”, or witchcraft?

But the biggest books, occupying the rank once held by Harry Potter, are The Hunger Games and Divergent, their sequels, the movies made from them, and assorted spin-off items.

Both of these depict a highly unpleasant future in which the human race must live under evil and oppressive tyrannies. Both tell stories of teenagers who rise up to overthrow their governments. And both are runaway best-sellers.

Hmmm….

Is there an awareness, somewhere out there in the culture, that we are heading for a really bad time?

My editor remarked to me the other day, “But that’s what I love about Bell Mountain. Sure, there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in those stories; but there are also victories being won, and there is always hope. Right in the middle of all the problems and crises and wars, there’s hope. Those other books seem awfully short on hope.”

In my Bell Mountain series, the hope is always centered on God, not man. After all, it was humanity’s bright ideas that messed things up in the first place. Wrath and envy and avarice do their share of harm in history; but pride has all those other sins beat. In my books and also in the others, it’s pride that has wrecked whole civilizations.

And in this other fallen world, the one that we live in, it’s pride that threatens to ruin us–the pride that convinces our leaders and the prattling pinheads of our brain trust that they know all the answers and that’s why they deserve to hold the power: because they know how to give us paradise on earth, if only they can make us all obey them.

That’s what they always think, and always will.

Hey–if we ever do wind up living like the poor devils in Divergent or The Hunger Games, remember: it started out as some experts’ bright idea.

Toxic Fiction REPRINT

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From June 30, 2013

Ages ago, one of my wife’s co-workers bought a rental property with a paid-up tenant, a little old lady who’d been there for years. The new owner wanted someone who could pay a higher rent, so she evicted the old woman–and came to work the next day bragging about it. “Just like J.R.!” she crowed.

She was referring to “J.R. Ewing,” the antihero played by Larry Hagman in the old TV series, Dallas. She was gloriously happy that she’d done something worthy of the villain in a TV show. (If you’re too young to have any idea what I’m talking about–well, go find out what I’m talking about.)

[Just in case you think God pays no attention to these things: The J.R. wannabe spent a lot of money remodeling the property and spiffing it up, and soon got the new tenants she asked for. They never paid the rent, and inside of two months, turned the place into a slum.]

As Solon once said, some 2,500 years ago, “If you put all those lies up on your stage, someday we’ll have them in our business.”

Far be it from me, as a story-teller, to say “No more story-telling!” But fiction can exert a powerful influence on the behavior of its consumers, and it’s so constantly available in so many different forms–novels, TV, comic books, movies, cable “news” shows. To what extent is our fiction responsible for the rotting-away of our Western  culture? Is it the fault of amoral story-tellers who don’t care what they create, as long as it makes a buck? Or is it the fault of mindless consumers who will gobble up anything as long as it’s labeled “entertainment”?

Just asking…

PS–The link to “Dallas” was supposed to take you to the TV show, but the stupid computer decided you would be better served by a high-altitude aerial photo of the city of Dallas. If you want to find out about this classic TV show, the link to “J.R. Ewing” will get you there.

The People’s Climate March (Can I Wake Up Now, REPRINT

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From September 15, 2014

Yesterday they got 20 inches of snow in Wyoming, and the day before it snowed in South Dakota and Colorado. Here in New Jersey this morning, it was only 41 degrees. And according to the calendar, it’s still summer!

Oh–and both the Arctic and Antarctic ice fields are growing big, big, big…

But never mind all that! The real problem is Global Warming! And so, later this month (Sept. 21), in collusion with the UN Climate Summit, complete with poetess and Global Warming poems, we’ll have… The People’s Climate March.

Got a barf bag handy? Well, you’d better get one, because I’m going to quote from their press release. Take a deep breath; here goes.

“This is an invitation to change everything. In September, world leaders are coming to New York City for a UN summit on the climate crisis. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is urging governments to support an ambitious global agreement to dramatically reduce global warming. [Editor’s note–It’s reducing itself, you numbskulls.]

“With our future on the ljne and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities.”

Remember, comrades: The People’s Climate March is “centered on justice… committed to principles of environmental justice and equality–representing the communities that are being hit the hardest by climate change.” ( http://peoplesclimate.org/march/ )

If you were playing Drivel Bingo while reading this, you just won.

Really, how many left-wing cliches can you stuff into a single press release?

Do these jidrools really, truly think that governments can control the weather? Just give the whoopee crowd enough power over your lives, and all your money–and they’ll stop those earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc. What kind of pagan putz believes that?

Oh–and they’ll make everybody equal, too. Will they make my income equal to Nancy Pelosi’s, or her income equal to mine?

Culture Collapse, Continued REPRINT

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See the source image

 

From December 1, 2017

Laocoon and his sons, when the serpents got ’em…

What’s wrong with this sentence? “In one of her first interviews, Harmony told Sun Online she loves sex…” (https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/5022057/interview-harmony-sex-robot/)

They’re talking about a robot: “Harmony, the sex robot with a Scottish accent who likes threesomes.” Oops, sorry–I should’ve told you up front to have a barf bag handy. I refuse to say they talked with a robot, because, as anybody but a moron knows, even the fanciest robot can only simulate a human conversation. It doesn’t know or understand what it’s doing, any more than a member of Congress does. It is only a simulation. It is not a real being. I mean, have you seen the picture of that thing? Yechhh!

Hey, call me old-fashioned, but I say “having sex” with a machine, be it a lowly egg beater or a newfangled “sex robot,” does not count as actually having sex. Inanimate objects cannot partake of sex. They can’t partake of anything. Is that really such a difficult concept to grasp?

As the United States and England writhe in the grasp of multiple sexual harassment scandals, reminiscent of Laocoon getting throttled by the serpents, here we are with our highly-esteemed nooze media jabbering about sex robots with a Scottish accent. Given the temper of the times, who can expect anyone to behave like a decent human being? Children start learning in bally kindergarten that all sex, no matter how improbable, no matter how bizarre, is something to be affirmed and celebrated–and done, for that matter!–or else. Why is anyone even complaining about TV nooze stars and movie moguls pulling down their pants in front of young women? What else can you honestly expect?

Try not to worry too much. If this news item disgusts you, you’re probably all right.

Another Youtube Treat REPRINT

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From March 16, 2014

We’ve been watching Thriller–free of charge on youtube–a 1961 TV series hosted by Boris Karloff.

This is about as good as TV has ever been, or ever will be. It was an anthology series with a very broad format. As long as the story was a “thriller,” be it a tale of mystery, intrigue, irony, or the supernatural, it fit.

What made it so good? For one thing, most of the screenplays were adapted from short stories or novels by some of the very best writers in the field–Robert Bloch, Charlotte Armstrong, Margaret Millar, and others. Sometimes the original author also wrote the screenplay.

For another, Thriller employed the best actors they could find. The likes of Brandon DeWilde, Susan Clark, and Boris Karloff himself are not to be found anymore on American TV. And then they hired top composers like Jerry Goldsmith and Pete Rugolo to write original music for each episode. Finallly, Karloff’s introductions to each story are a treat.

With all that going for it, Thriller just had to be great.

My favorite outing, so far, has been Pigeons from Hell, starring Brandon DeWilde, based on a story by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. This was one corker of a scary story! My wife’s favorite is Rose’s Last Summer, starring Mary Astor, from a novel by Margaret Millar, a mystery-writing genius who was married to another award-winning author, Ross MacDonald.

I don’t know about you, but when I watch this stuff, it flushes out my mind like an outboard motor, so I’m ready to take up my work again the next day. Yes, that’s escapism. And yes, my little grey cells need regular doses of it. And I’ll bet yours do, too.

Terrible TV… and Public Policy REPRINT

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From April 24, 2014

Over the years, there has been a lot of really awful television. Here’s an example of one of the many lists on the Internet devoted to “the 50 worst TV shows of all time,” http://itscoolweb.blogspot.com/2008/10/real-50-worst-tv-shows-of-all-time.html .

I’ve never had cable TV, so I missed a lot of the shows on the list. But some are too notorious ever to be forgotten. Mrs. Columbo… Cop Rock… Manimal… My Mother the Car… Celebrity Boxing… and many others. I never saw Cop Rock, but this 1990 debacle is described as “a police drama presented as a musical.” Yeeeh–it lasted for 11 episodes.

Now, nobody in Hollywood sets out purposely to fail. It costs a lot of money. Before any of these horrible shows was launched, people who supposedly knew what they were doing held conferences, consulted potential sponsors, discussed writing and casting, and produced some preliminary writing and footage that they could all look at to see if they were on the right track. And yet, with all that preparation, they could still come up with something like Mrs. Columbo, described by several reviewers as “putrid” and “unwatchable,” which went through three or four changes of the title, which started out as a blatant Columbo rip-off but then abandoned every pretense of having anything to do with the original Columbo character–all this in the mere 13 weeks of the show’s existence.

Now please think about this. If it’s that hard to create a successful TV show, and that easy to create a bomb, with professional television people calling all the shots–how hard must it be to create successful public policy?

If the bunch we’ve got running our country now were running a TV studio, they’d be cranking out  Mrs. Columbo.

Of course, it’s easy to avoid a bad TV show. But how can anyone avoid bad public policy? My Mother the Car only hurt those who produced and sponsored it. Obamacare hurts the whole country.

Setting aside for the moment the inborn depravity of man, and his perpetual vulnerability to all kinds of temptation, the history of TV bombs should be enough, in and of itself, to warn us off giving great, unchecked power to anyone.

Bad TV gets canceled.

Bad public policy goes on forever.