I really thought I had this down, the whole posting at least once a (week)day thing again. Oh well, so I missed yesterday. Big deal. I had a good excuse (which will be in the next post).
But first, all these random bits kept happening or popping to mind this weekend. For instance:
ON Saturday I was suddenly reminded that my TV must be 14 to 15 years old. It’s a crappy 19″ with one input in the back, a standard cable/antenna RF connection. How do I connect my DVD player you ask? Good question? I run it with a regular RCA type yellow composite video cable through a VCR. Oh yeah, I’m living with the kick-ass picture, I am. And when you letterbox those films, the height of the image ends up being somewhere around 6 inches. It’s just awesome. Actually, it’s horrible, and I almost can’t watch it. (Key word: almost.) I can’t watch anything good on it though. I tried to watch a movie I had DiVod from TCM, and I just couldn’t deal. Even things in black and white of a pink tint. I’ve tried to adjust the tint and brightness, and it’s now better, but still awful.
But I haven’t bought a new TV because I can’t afford the TV I want. I hate spending large sums of money on things I consider second rate. It’s sort of the same thing I was talking about on Friday: why spend $65 for crappy balcony seats when $100 for orchestra literally makes all the difference. I feel the same way about TVs. Why spend $300 for something meh when you can put that $300 towards buying that $750 LCD widescreen that would kick ass?
But now I don’t have the option, and I’m trying to find the happy medium. On Saturday, my TV blacked out for a second. Literally, one second. When the image came back, it looked weird. It still was sharp and in-focus, but it was darker and very red. I’m sure a part of the tube basically blew out, which is understandable in a 15 year old TV. So now I need to buy a new one, but I don’t want to spend a couple hundred dollars on a small piece of crap. I also can’t afford to get the 32″ or widescreen that I would love both because of cost and because I’m going to have to move by the beginning of September, and I have no idea what kind of situation in which I’m going to find myself. But I still want to get something decent, and bigger, that will actually make my DVDs look like DVDs for the first time … ever. And of course, buying a bigger TV means needing a new/bigger TV stand too … so the non-existent money not in this unemployed person’s bank account somehow manages to get even more … uhm … non-existent.
Anyway, I’m looking at a Samsung 27″, a Sony 27″ and a Panasonic 27″ … I believe all with digital comb filters and flat tubes. If anyone has any good TV-buying advice, let me know.
MEANWHILE, on Sunday night, the stars came out for the Tonys, but there was obviously tons of cloud cover because only 6.6 Million television watchers gave a shit. That translates to an absolutely pathetic 1.4 rating and 4 share in the desired 18-49 demo. And sadly, the show wasn’t all that bad. There was a clever opening with Billy Crystal coming on and pretending like he was the host; the numbers for Spamalot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee were great (although I thought Christina Applegate’s performance from Sweet Charity was awful), and the show never actually got tremendously boring. At least not for an awards show.
I’m happy CBS continues to broadcast the Tonys. I just think that maybe it’s time for them to change a bit and, in some way, become more National. Broadway now is not what Broadway once was. There was a time when much of what was popular music came directly from shows on Broadway. In fact, in the 1920s and ’30s, it was mostly the case. There was a time when more films were adapted from Broadway plays rather than the other way around. There was a time when fewer people visited New York, yet Broadway as an institution still had a dramatic influence over theater across the nation. But that time is past. Broadway is now a tourist destination more than anything else. Plays are put up more for commercial viability than for distinctive artistry.
There’s always that one point during the Tonys where an award is presented to a top regional theater from somewhere else in the country. The fact is, the best theater these days is happening at those theaters and Off-Broadway here in town. I’m not sure how one would actually give nationwide theatrical awards – it’s too difficult for any adjudicating body to judge that many plays all over the country as opposed to easily going to a screening or watching a DVD. But if there was a way to connect theater that people could actually see without spending thousands of dollars on a vacation to the people in other parts of the country, maybe they would get more viewers actually tuning in to watch their show. I’m sure there’s a way – it just might take some creative ingenuity, unfortunately, a quality which has been mostly lacking the last few years on Broadway.
LASTLY, just the other night I was having a conversation with a friend about the various network morning shows, and I brought-up how I just didn’t get CNN’s Bill Hemmer. He’s been this rising star at CNN ever since the 2000 election, and I understand he’s very smart, but you know what? He’s not really very good. In fact, he’s an absolutely terrible interviewer. He always has this slightly patronizing, condescending tone, but his youthful face and good looks somehow tempers it. Worst of all, though, is you can tell that he’s just not listening to whoever he’s questioning. He’s always thinking up or preparing for the next question. He asks very few follow-ups, and when he does, they’re often more antagonistic than challenging. Sometimes that’s called for; sometimes it’s just due to lack of creativity.
So color me shocked when yesterday it was announced that Hemmer’s out at CNN. They’re replacing him on CNN’s AM broadcast American Morning and putting together a pair of O’Briens – the new Miles with the old Soledad. Even more surprising, though, was that they’re not reassigning Hemmer or putting him back into the field – it seems that he’s leaving the network all together. Have I missed the news that Hemmer’s got a new high-paying gig elsewhere? “(A)t this point in my career, it is time for me to move forward with a new set of challenges.” What the hell does that mean? It means his contract wasn’t renewed, and he was probably blindsided.
Even worse, this morning if you turned on CNN, there was the old show with Hemmer, O’Brien and Cafferty side-by-side. Can someone say uncomfortable?
Out of Focus 