On The Road Again

There are some blue notes from the road including not visiting friends in places such as Omaha, and various cities and towns in Texas. Choosing October to travel rather than August is another, since that fact alone forced me on a southern trajectory across the country not only for warmer weather, but primarily so that I could cross the Rocky Mountains at their lowest altitude. I did not want to risk running into snow, which in Colorado and points north can happen even in summer. 

I will make that crossing over the Rockies in the next 48 hours. Right now, I am chilling in a fabulous and luxurious resort in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico… trying not to let the thin air or my tweaked back get me down.

I have gotten ahead of myself. You last heard from this intrepid… and rapidly aging… traveler as I was preparing to leave Rosemary Beach in the Florida Panhandle. Normally, I would continue to go west to New Orleans and then visit with friends in Houston and another couple I have not seen in a very long time who reside in the beautiful community ofRound Top, Texas.

Hurricane Helene had decimated the West Coast of Florida, impacting on my initial plan of a drive up my home state’s West Coast; then, as I travelled, a new storm (Milton) formed in the Gulf bringing into question a drive along the Panhandle’s coast to New Orleans.

I decided---prematurely it turned out---to hightail it northward, away from the storm, into Alabama, and to revisit what I had remembered as the fabulous tributes to the Civil Rights movement in both Montgomery and Birmingham. It had been two decades since I visited the area with my eldest grandchild when she was a Black Studies Major at Oberlin College in Ohio.

I left Rosemary Beach that Sunday morning and stayed faithful to the country roads on which I love to drive. Alabama is beautiful, thecountryside pristine and replete with two-lane roads that are well paved.

The BMW cruised through Brantley which has a high school that appeared to be housed in a trailer. Brantley High School is for pre-K through 12th grade and the town, founded over a hundred and thirty years ago in 1891, still has not reached a population of 1,000. It is a long way from my birthplace in East Los Angeles, or my adopted home of Miami… and not only in miles. Even my Island paradise has more residents.

I was in Selma by late in the afternoon. It was all but deserted. I parked the car and took the time to walk over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 

Onward to Montgomery which has improved dramatically in the time that has gone by since my last visit nearly twenty years ago. The bad news was that all the museums and historical tributes to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and the Civil Rights Movement were closed by the time I got there that Sunday night; none would reopen until Wednesday.

The Legacy Sites did not exist when I last visited the Civil Rights Trail,but the reviews were so powerful I felt compelled to at least drive-bythem and was glad that I did. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened in 2018, informally known as The National Lynching Museum, is an architectural wonder. Even as I peeked in through the gates of the nearby Freedom Monument Sculpture Park near the banks of the Alabama River where countless slaves began their journeys, there was more than a hint of the worthwhile visit within. It is unlikely this old guy will make it back there, but you should… with your children and theirs.

I moved on to Birmingham… often referred to in my youth as BOMBingham for all the terror brought down on that city’s Black population. I remembered the museum there as one of the most impactful I had ever seen. It too was closed until Wednesday. I walked across the street to Kelly Ingram Park which had left indelible images all those years ago with its lifelike sculptures of police attack dogs, power water hoses and other offenses against Black people. Unless my memory was playing tricks, this park is no longer the powerful visit that it was. Stuff happens in 20 years. Not all of it is progress.

Now, well into Monday afternoon, I drove south and west to Tuscaloosato see the campus of the University of Alabama. Absolutely gorgeous… and alive with young people everywhere making their ways across the multiple quads to seemingly innumerable numbers of beautiful brick buildings. 

Hot Springs, Arkansas was my next destination point. I had never been, despite multiple trips across the country, and the name only jumped off my map because of some vague recollection I had of the town being anescape from the trials of life in Chicago for Al Capone and Lucky Luciano in the 1930s.

There are a lot of tributes to the two mobsters in Hot Springs, which one must believe has seen much better days. I think “tacky” covers it today. I did not leap at the chance to try the baths. To give the place its due, the locals could not have been friendlier.

It was just after all this that I drove through a very tiny town in Arkansas called De Queen. Best chicken fried steak I have ever had and the best meal so far on this entire trip… admittedly a low bar on this kind of adventure, but still… the food was so good it is worthy of note: Ranch House Café of De Queen, 208 East Collin Raye Drive, Arkansas… just in case you find yourself in the neighborhood.

The drive westward across Oklahoma and then down into Albuquerque provided little amusement over the two days it required. I decided to reward myself and book the best room I could find in New Mexico’s largest city. I picked the historic Hotel Andaluz… built around the time I was born and the pride of Conrad Hilton who spent his honeymoon there with Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Once inside the Hotel I came to realize that I had stumbled into the city at a most propitious time… The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta was happening. There had been a cancellation… some dude from Florida could not make it because of Hurricane Milton. He had to give up his room. Apparently, that is how I had gotten mine. I also took his place on the bus that would leave the Hotel at 4AM the next morning to watch the ascension of the hundreds of hot air balloons that would begin in the pre-dawn hours and go on until about 9AM.

It was all very impressive. I have never seen anything like it and felt fortunate to have lucked into such an event. Back at the Hotel, later that morning, I napped with the intention of rising in time to watch the USC-Penn State game on the extra-large screen my hotel room provided. Good plan, but a failure with the Internet blacked out all TV in the entire area.

With a little help from the Hotel concierge, I was off to a distant sports bar in time to watch my Trojans go down to defeat… again. My passion for this team is being tested, but this season fits right into the time of loss I have been experiencing too often with friends and family. A tough year.

That is why I elected to spoil myself in Santa Fe. My trip is close to an end.  I will soon cross the Rocky Mountains and make my way to Phoenix and the Biltmore Hotel, of Frank Lloyd Wright fame. It is where, at the age of twenty-one, I spent my wedding night with my recently deceased first wife and where I will watch USC play its next game against another Big 10 rival. 

What could possibly go wrong? 

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

 

 

The Road Part I

Driving across the US of A in a fine automobile is one of my passions. When I was younger, it was something I did every even numbered year… tooling from Miami to Los Angeles over a three-to-four-week span, first in a Mercedes SL, then a Bentley Azure, next a Phaeton by Volkswagen, and then a Bentley Continental GTC. Now, I am on what will most likely be the last such trip of my life… this time in a BMW 740i.

The BMW is a bit of a step down in class, but it is extremely comfortable, a more than decent driving machine, and not at all bad looking. I know, I know, I have settled. There is nothing like driving the blue lane highways of America in a Bentley with the top down. The emotional and social experience cannot be replicated; although being pulled over for speeding in the Phaeton, and the first question out of the police officer’s mouth was to ask with awe what kind of car it was that I was driving was special… and memorable.

Enough about the past. By now most of you know what is meant by “the blue lane highways,” and why it takes me at least three to four weeks to make a drive that professionals do in three to five days.

On the trip, my idea of exercise is to enter a town via main street, drive to the end of the strip, park, walk back the length of the road to the diner I saw on entering, have lunch, then walk back to the car, climb aboard and drive on. Each trip is different, mostly these drives have been in the month of August, but this last adventure is an October surprise, and as such has some weather implications that have heretofore not impacted my plans.

Hurricane Helene flooded a lot of the back roads I had hoped to take on the western coast of Florida. Now that I have managed all of that with me and The Beamer in Rosemary Beach on the western end of the Florida Panhandle, Hurricane Milton has me rerouting northward. It is hard to take a hurricane with a name like Milton seriously… but I will.

My oldest grandchild will be proud when she learns I have decided to retrace some of the places she and I did together on our second road trip when she was a Black studies major at Oberlin College and leading me through Montgomery and Birmingham in Alabama.

That will get me out of harm’s way but also far from New Orleans and any chance of dropping in on pals in Houston, Round Top, Dallas, or San Antonio. More on that future stuff when it is in my past. For now, a brief report on where I have been.

To appreciate all of what follows you must understand that on any trip from Miami to Los Angeles the absolute worst part of the drive is the part involving getting out of the State of Florida.

I love my adopted home, but it has its flaws. A general lack of topography is one of them. Florida is flat and the routes in and out are long and boring. It doesn’t help that the worst drivers in the US have Florida license plates on their automobiles. The temptation is to stay close to the coasts, but those eastern coastal towns can really be tacky, traffic-y and generally an eyesore.

Once Hurricane Helene ravaged the Florida West Coast, I resolved to stay inland… to see the farms of Florida no matter how flat, and to finally get a look at Lake Okeechobee, the largest body of water in my home state and the second largest in the contiguous US.

I got to the lake and couldn’t see it. I mean, c’mon, it is reportedly huge. I could not see it, and the reason was that nearly a hundred years ago, there was a storm which created enormous flooding resulting in hundreds of fatalities. Better late than never, a berm was built around the lake’s perimeter all but eliminating any danger from the lake to surrounding communities.

Good for them, bad for the view. I took the better part of a day driving around that enormous thing determined to see some of that massive fresh water supply, and finally, via a small, unmarked road that took me to an honest to God observation deck, was able to do so. There… as far as the eye could see…. was Florida’s finest freshwater lake.

Exhausted I opted to spend the night at a hotel in Orlando. Boring, but theme parks are not part of my dream. I moved on…. drove in and around The Villages to see what all the fuss is about.

The Villages is Florida famous. A created community in the middle of nowhere, conceived and built by a genius entrepreneur of a developer. There are multiple Golf courses, polo fields, softball diamonds, tennis courts, pickle ball, manicured lawns, beautiful homes…. some bigger and more beautiful than others, but everyone impressive or semi-so in its own way. It is an authentic and popular adult community with a notorious social life and supposedly the highest rate of venereal disease in the country. I looked around, but only exited my car to buy gasoline.

Then on to horse country, Ocala, Florida. Reminiscent of the blue grass estates I have driven past in Kentucky… every bit as opulent and beautiful… even without hills. The next day I drove into Apalachicola in the Florida Panhandle. Charming. A town that used to be the oyster capital of the Stare that has all but died because of pollutants in their Bay is trying a comeback. The 19^th century homes and neighborhoods are lovely. I could live among em… there was even an occasional Harris/Walz sign.

I write you now from Rosemary Beach… one of my primary Florida destinations. A manufactured town in the western most part of the State that is Disneyland for grownups. I really like it, even if it is a movie set without the cameras. I first visited here maybe twenty years ago and thought seriously about buying then when it was only a fledgling community. Now it has fulfilled its promise.  

Northward bound tomorrow. More to come as the road provides.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

 

 

 

Loss and the Road Traveled

 

I have been busy of late doing what in my case can best be described as the business of self-amusement. I have finished my novella, The Killing of Rush Limbaugh, and I am in the midst of what will probably be something close to the penultimate polish of my latest tome, Life Without Cagney & Lacey. I have been a bit bogged down in and around chapter 10 of the twenty-seven segments that complete the book, and all but convinced that it will never be read by anyone save yours truly.

For the curious: the referenced chapter 10 has quite a bit of content leading up to the end of my first marriage in the late 1960s. I was experiencing some difficulty with the present-day timing of this task coinciding as it does with my first wife being brought back to her California home by our children as a hospice patient for what will surely be her last remaining days on the planet.

The kids have been checking in with me regularly by phone and even placed the speaker close to their Mom so that I could say the best goodbye I could come up with under the circumstances.

That all melded with the other piece of writing I had to do this week, which was an obituary for one of my oldest, boyhood friends. We had met a year or two before we attended the same high school together, and then we were both at college at the University of Southern California. My pal went on to law school and I became his first client. He was my lawyer until the day he died.

All this was going on while the powers that enforce Florida law are bringing my 40-year-old Fisher Island building up to current code with some destruction of the old, and more than a little construction of the new. The refurbishing is finally getting to be tiresome and there is a certain loss of privacy as crews of hard hats climb my deck to erect scaffolding while the seawall outside my window gets knocked down to be replaced with something newer, stronger, and higher.

The whole thing has me looking westward. A road trip. It would have happened sooner, but I have been mourning my Bentley convertible. This week’s events put that loss into perspective. It was time to stop moping and take my new(ish) BMW cross country to family and friends in Southern California. The Beemer is not the tower of power and prestige that was its predecessor, but it ain’t bad. Besides… it is arguably the most comfortable car I have ever driven and at my age there is something to be said for that.

There is the latest piece of harsh news: Hurricane Helene has very possibly wiped out a good section of roads I had planned to take for the first week of the journey. I have done many drives across the US in the past but never later in the year than August. This being October, I had therefore settled on a southern route… the gulf coast to New Orleans and points west, abandoning the roads through Appalachia, the Lincoln Highway, the friends in Omaha, the crossing of the Rocky Mountains … too late in the year… too cold.

I will make some hurricane-result adjustments but stick to the South as best I can, taking somewhere between three to four weeks to make the journey to California… never driving at night, and rarely going more than three hundred miles in a single day. The route will avoid the Interstates and focus primarily on the Blue Lane Highways (so named for their color on most maps). These are the roads (like the famed Route 66 of song and story) predating Eisenhower’s expansion of the nation’s highway system. These are the ones that go through America’s towns and business sections. Thanks to Hurricane Helene I may have to duck Florida’s central west to northwestern coast and most of her panhandle. Too bad. I was looking forward to that.

Finally, it may be a while before another one of these missives, so indulge me as I whiz through some suggestions and warnings about what might be viewed these days on your so-called premium channels.

So far only three episodes of the second season of The Old Man have been released by Hulu. With the caveat that things could easily go south in this series, let me say so far/so good, and very worth your time. The Penguin on MAX is provocative and dark, befitting its Batman pedigree. Colin Farrell plays the title role, and the actor is sure to get his share of nominations for his makeup, if not his extraordinary work. Only one episode out so far, but worth a look. There is a danger in giving accolades so early in a show’s season, but by the time I am settled in LA these shows may be old news.

One piece of old news is Dark Winds, a series released in 2022, set in the Navajo Nation of today’s American West and featuring all native American talent both in front of and behind the cameras of this AMC police procedural. You can catch it as well on HULU, but my best counsel is that you avoid the whole mess. Mediocre writing and some very poor acting are coupled with pedestrian direction in every episode. Occasionally there are some worthwhile moments but too few for you to stay with this series. Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon plays the lead in the show, and he is a notable exception to the talent level of the remainder of the players.

Even worse is Palm Royale, which I found unwatchable as early as midway through the first episode. Finally, my views are at best mixed about the Amazon Prime series, The Underground Railroad.

There must be a term for … wish it could be so even though it isn’t…shows set in an historical context, but if there is I don’t know it. Bridgerton from the Shonda Rhimes factory is an example. Quentin Tarantino turned it into something close to an “IF ONLY” art form with Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The Railroad series is that kind of fantasy/semi-realistic show.

Unlike what you will see in this series, the Underground Railroad was not literally a railroad that traveled subway like under the ground… nor was there a community at the end of the line where former Black slaves could be dressed up, fed, housed, and studied “for science.” Still, interesting stuff in this well produced series and a powerful presentation of America’s “original sin.”

I would continue to watch this last series, but I am called to my own road… This one above ground and (hopefully) not under water.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

THE NOT-SO-GREAT ESCAPE

One of the major television events of this century played out this past week in front of nearly seventy million Americans. The reactions were varied and ranged from celebration to feeling the need to bathe. Whatever side you may root for… no matter who your candidate may be… one thing was clear: it was great TV.

The nation’s political passions are at fever pitch. Never before has one of the two major candidates for President been on the political scene for such a long time, both as a candidate and a national celebrity. Never before has our nation been so polarized. The prospect, that no matter how the election goes in November, there will be tens of millions of deeply unhappy Americans in America is, to say the very least, daunting.

There is a chilling final moment in the movie The Ugly American where, facing a similar kind of awful, uncomfortable truth on a television screen, the hand of an unseen TV viewer appears and changes the channel.

That is what I am doing now. Taking the coward’s way out and, at least for this moment, escaping from reality by way of letting you know what else is going on via your television screen.

Dark Matter is a limited series out of Apple TV+ that is a long way from everyone’s cup of chowder, but it is good and should satisfy many a science-fiction buff as well as most of the psychological thriller crowd.

On some levels I found Dark Matter reminiscent of Orphan Black, but in reality, it does not measure up to that outstanding show, lacking the wit and wisdom not only of that series, but also missing the Academy Award winning Tatiana Maslany’s performance(s).

That said, there are few shows that can ever come up to the standard set by the Orphan Black gang and it is no shame to, Icarus-like, make that attempt.

Dark Matter does work on many levels, so its failures tend to stand out… one such mistake being the “explanation” of the universe in which the show’s action takes place. At times, the viewer gets the feeling that the whole thing is being made up as it goes along and that the “rules” can be bent when necessary to extricate the writers from any corner in which they have painted themselves.

Even with that caveat, Dark Matter delivers more than enough suspense to satisfy most. The series pretty much works and I recommend it.

For the less demanding there is Expats on Amazon Prime, Under The Bridge (Hulu) and Shogun, also on Hulu. All three shows have some literary credentials (some easier to discern in their television adaptations than others), and all have some merit. That said, I found them all to be overblown and overlong and their cast of actors less than compelling even though their numbers include Nicole Kidman (Expats), Lily Gladstone (Bridge), and Archie Panjabi (Bridge). I would argue that Shogun is the most disappointing of this trio, but many professional critics seem not to share that view.

A last-minute entry for this column (with 11 Emmy award nominations) is Baby Reindeer (Netflix). This is tough stuff, beautifully and brutally delivered. Richard Gadd lived it, wrote about it, and plays the leading role. Jessica Gunning, the female lead is real, powerful, and impressive. Definitely not for everyone, yet I would not be surprised to see this sweep up most of the awards for which it has been nominated.

Mr Bates Vs The Post Office (PBS) is also excellent and, unlike Reindeer, has the advantage of being pretty much for anyone. Like Reindeer, it is based on a true story. The performances by the all-UK cast are uniformly excellent. It is another of the PBS Masterpiece presentations and is a worthy addition to that excellent series of top-notch television. All that and a double dare from this writer to the viewer not to get teary-eyed at the end.

A brief mention… and even that is more than it deserves… for The Perfect Couple. It is another Netflix miniseries starring the beautiful Nicole Kidman as well as an equally beautiful beach house that is supposed to be on Nantucket but is not. This piece of junk (the miniseries, not the house) does not even qualify as guilty pleasure… although I did enjoy looking at that beach house… and, of course, Nicole Kidman.

Finally…. Kaos on Netflix. I found it unwatchable, but then I could not stand Schitt’s Creek and can only occasionally get through a film by Wes Anderson. Simply put: just not my thing… with the understanding/concession that you, like so many others, just may like this.

The Emmy awards are coming up on the 15^th of this month and, due to the number of shows that accumulated during the various Hollywood Guild strikes, there are an inordinate number of quality shows and performances worthy of recognition this cycle. If you are watching/wagering, keep your eye out for multiple awards for The Morning Show, Fargo, Bear, Hacks, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Ripley, Lessons in Chemistry, and for a couple of sentimental favorites such as Griselda and Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. I realize it is never too smart to bet against the Brits (The Crown), but I found that I have tired of the Royals, and I would not be surprised if Academy members have as well.

However the awards turn out, this year may be the most qualitative we will have for quite a while. The Industry is slowing down, not recuperating at all well from last year’s labor disputes, nor the realization that the economics of the streaming model, exploited so well by Netflix, has turned out to be far less profitable than was hoped.

With Americans adjusting to watching more and more foreign based shows, and with film libraries overflowing with materials from by-gone golden ages, there will be (at least for the foreseeable future) plenty for us all to watch until the younger generation learns how to make their own movies, simply by dictating something they think they may want to see into some not-too-far-in- the-future A-I device.

They just may have  to change the Irving Berlin tune There’s No Business Like Show Business to There’s No Business, Period. That is unless they can get Trump to agree to more TV debates.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

  

Me and Ozymandias

 

The woman who was seated next to me at a dinner party on this Island paradise of mine, was one of some accomplishment; a doctor, and one of Miami’s shining lights in her field. She was having trouble grasping my concept that it is just as possible to be compulsive about doing nothing as it is to be obsessive over actually accomplishing something.

 

Explaining my post-Hollywood life during the quarter century that had elapsed since my early retirement at age 58, I articulated how it was that once upon a time all my “wires” were plugged into a television monitor, but that just before coming into the current century, I removed them all in order to reinsert each one into a Fisher Island monitor.

“The secret,” I confided, in something approaching sotto voce: “no loose wires.”

 

In other words, once I had made my decision to move to Florida, I resolved not to dabble in my former business. The very few times I found myself in any way tempted, it almost destroyed my formula for success in my newfound world of contentment. Without exception, I have regretted any flirtation with my erstwhile career.

 

The Doctor stared at me. Besides being a scientist heavily vested in the system, she was born and brought up in a Korean household… a culture that has, along with most of Asia, taught its children well how to work and achieve in the American way. Dinner now being over, so was our evening; the good doctor had to be up early for surgery.

 

Not me. I enjoy my rest, my recreation, my time to myself, but more and more of late people wonder if I might experience an ever-growing sense of a loss of identity…or, more to the point… a loss of self-esteem and/or self-purpose as the years go by and the successes of the past grow ever more distant. 

 

I recall that very “grown up” movie my parents took me to where the leading man (I think it was Fredric March) had left his wife in the East for an illicit romantic idle at some exotic locale on the coast of central California. Now, unhappy with the aimless life he had so recently sought, Mr. March complained to his mistress, “… it’s always Indian Summer here…” 

 

I didn’t get his problem at the age of six and, frankly, I still don’t. I do appreciate that, on many levels, that this is “it” for me…that with no more mountains to climb, no more wars to win, I long ago abandoned that thing that traditionally drives men on and that

being me is not what it used to be. And if I can’t be who I have always been, then what?

I find that I am becoming… if not boring, then certainly potentially less relevant and, coincidently (?), ever more reclusive. My mind leaps to the bull elephant “thing.” The preparation to go off from the herd to find that final place of rest.

 

The ROMEOs (Retired Old Men Eating Out), with whom I meet every Friday, occasionally touch on this, but unlike me, most of them seem more interested in living forever than figuring out where that final exit ramp might take them.

 

My life is good, albeit inordinately long, and that is cause for some amount of worry. Not only because of the possibility of too much life at the end of the money, but possibly because the longer I am on the planet, the farther I am from those days that for most of my life defined who I was because of what I had done. It was not always thus. Years before I had told P.K. Knelman, my one-time fabulous assistant, that I did not want to be defined by my work.

 

“I hate to tell you this,” came Ms. Knelman’s retort, “but Mother Theresa is defined by her work. It is not necessarily a bad thing.”

 

Those were the days when Cagney & Lacey, my signature hit, was mentioned in nearly everything written that defined quality television, when Gloria Steinem paraded me through multiple events in Washington D.C. as the darling of the women’s movement, and when (at Hollywood’s Genie Awards) following Norman Lear’s introduction as “King” Lear, I was introduced as the industry’s “heir apparent.” Those were the days of another century.

 

Since then, there has been an explosion of brilliant television: The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Game of Thrones, The West Wing, Homeland, Justified, The Americans… and we are barely a quarter of the way into the 21^st century. Variety no longer finds it necessary to mention my show in its top 100 list of the best of the all-time shows on television. For twenty years or so I never cared all that much, but I find that now, that I no longer have the tools with which to fight back, it stings.

 

Several years back, grazing through the plethora of shows on my bedroom television screen, I finally settled on a documentary about the life of famed film producer, David O. Selznick. A good place for me to halt my graze.

 

“He’s a producer, I’m a producer... could be interesting,” I remember thinking.

 

Interesting, yes, but Mr. Selznick and I had little in common outside of that producer’s credit. He was a driven, unhappy man who literally ruined his life in the failed attempt to change what he believed would be the headline for his obituary in the New York Times:

David O. Selznick, Producer of “Gone With The Wind,” Died Today.

 

Selznick was a young man when he produced that singular hit and its specter haunted him. With each passing season, and with each less than spectacular film that followed, it became increasingly clear that he would never surpass what he had done so many years before with the result being that Selznick died an unhappy and unfulfilled individual.

 

I remember turning off my TV at that final informative moment and thinking, “that’s interesting. When I die, the New York Times will write:

Barney Rosenzweig, Producer of “Cagney & Lacey,” Died Today.

 

What can I say? That worked for me.

 

That was then. Now, although the headline still does “work” for me, I am none too sure that is what will be written… or if the Times will even deign to have an obituary of any kind for this one-time/too long-ago TV heavyweight of the 1980s.

 

Staying too long at the fair used to be something that applied to my fellow show runners who hung around past their prime in the world of show business. Now I see it as a flaw in a world of longevity run amok with octogenarians running for President and more.

 

Once again I find myself at odds with the politics of the now. Who gives a damn about the “Right to Life,” I shout at my television screen as I realize I am far more interested in its opposite. I think of how well I feel, how good I look at 86 and a half years of age, and I resolve to check that portrait of me in the storage room.

 

Like Selznick’s famous heroine, maybe tomorrow.

 

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

POST OP

I have yet to master the sit-down. This is not to be confused with the sit-in made popular in political seasons such as these. The sit-down to which I refer relates to the fact that last week’s hernia surgery still plays a significant role in the day-to-day of this aging correspondent. Who knew that sitting upright in front of a word processor requires the flexing of one’s core? Those few muscles I have left around the stomach area can not only distract, they can just plain hurt.

I am okay. I have been told not to exercise for up to six weeks. A prescription not to do something I hate doing anyway seemed a small price to pay for ridding myself of the growing discomfort in my left groin.

It has been just over a week since my operation and, as you might well imagine, I have been watching quite a bit of TV. Some of it is not too bad, but most of it is not worthy of much in the way of a mention.

Bad Monkey has some cute stuff to recommend as a kind of funky cop show set in the Florida Keys. You could do worse, and Vince Vaughn’s presence as the lead in the Apple TV+ series is a definite plus. Slow Horses, also on Apple TV+ is better… but only if you are into the British way of presenting their version of a spy drama where, inevitably, the spooks wind up looking inward at their own failings rather than that of whatever enemy they are sworn to oppose. Gary Oldman is perfect, followed closely by Kristin Scott Thomas and Jonathan Pryce. The rest of the cast is first rate as well… still, it is not for everyone.

The limited series, Presumed Innocent, starring Jake Gyllenhaal might be worth your time. I would grade it a B- which is fair praise for a suspense series with a disappointing contrivance for an ending. I thought Peter Sarsgaard was particularly good and even better was the guy who played his boss, O-T Fagbenle. It is on Apple TV+.

Finally, via Disney+, there is Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s “version”). It is anything but… swift, that is. Three-and one-half hours of a stadium show filmed in front of a live audience of 70,000 plus. Ms. Swift is, I must assume from all I have read, something of a show biz and money making phenomenon. You could not prove it by me. She is pleasant enough to look at, but three and a half hours of her songs… which all sound pretty much alike… C’mon, Sinatra would not have even considered doing such a thing, nor would Streisand, and both are easily so much better than this young woman will ever be. Her voice is limited, and her dancing is rudimentary.

Please no letters refuting my dim view of this luminary. I get that she is the all-American girl, that her endorsement of someone running for President is meaningful, and that I am on the wrong side of some kind of movement here. Blame It on my recent surgery and move on. Lest it go unsaid, the special is particularly well directed and produced.

I am just about out of sit-down tolerance. By way of closing, let me segue into what follows, some of it written pre-surgery as a follow-up to my last column.

Nine years ago, I was on a visit to Los Angeles when a writer friend called to invite me to join her and some pals for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and to watch the year’s first prime-time Republican Presidential debate. It was the kick-off for an election that would take place more than 15 months later.

Within minutes of the start of the FOX presentation, the Beverly Hills crowd had left the TV viewing area to imbibe, leaving me alone in the dark with Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Donald J. Trump.

As the debate ended, those previously in my company returned, curious about who I thought was the likely winner and eventual candidate to replace Barack Obama in the White House.

I believe I surprised everyone in that assemblage of Hollywood lefties by picking the guy who 15 months later would defeat Hillary Clinton to become the 45^th President of the United States.

Asked to explain this choice, I espoused my thesis that Americans do not know very much about government or governing; they are not well educated in civics, nor are they particularly well read on history or politics. I was diplomatic enough not to point out how each of them had abandoned the televised debate, preferring their prosecco to politics, but instead went on to conclude: “What our fellow citizens do very well, however… is watch television.” Pausing for effect, I then added, “Donald Trump is good television.”

He is, too. As flawed and under-educated as he is… and has proven himself to be, for the past decade he has flummoxed the better educated, the more articulate, and the more knowledgeable of his adversaries. It is as if he has learned to defy gravity as he looms large over and into all our lives, through the massive crowds that gather at his rallies, into our living rooms via our television screens where, Elmer Gantry-like, he preaches and teaches us a new gospel.

That was then. Nine years later there is a new girl in town, and the TV is rocking with this whole fresh look. And it is “the look,” that is an essential part of the visual medium of television. It is not just who is prettier, or who is the better dresser. It is about contrast: Cagney & Lacey… Starsky & Hutch… the ampersands may signify partnership, but there is a reason one is a blonde and the other a brunette, why one comes from a working-class environment and the other does not. Think about any wrestling match you ever saw on your home television screen; it is all about contrast… the yin and the yang.

This year, two old white guys were set for a rematch of their 2020 contest. The contrast… at least visually… just was not enough to capture the imagination of the American public. Interest in the election was at an historic low.

That has now all taken a very dramatic… great TV… turn. Our election is no longer about two old guys but is now a battle of the sexes coupled with young versus old. Did you see her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention? Ms. Harris is not anyone’s apprentice. What she delivered amid a perfectly produced Democratic convention was one of the best acceptance speeches of my lifetime. What she dispelled, in the process, was any doubt that she is anything less than fully capable of taking on the mantle of leader of the free world. What had failed to excite the American voter is now in the past.

Whatever side you are on, it all makes for terrific TV and (surprise, surprise) America is watching. Ratings for the conventions were record breakers. It really is a good sign with a great headline: America Wins.

Post-Script: Never mind that I find it slightly disconcerting that Ms. Harris looks an awful lot like one of my ex-wives. I am going to bite the bullet and vote for her anyway.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

BEST SHOW OF THE SEASON

It has been a while since I could say with confidence that the best kept secret in North America was summer on Fisher Island. The weather this season has been the worst of my nearly 30 years on this Island paradise.

Michael Fuchs from his lovely New York country home, 45 minutes from Broadway, tells me it is brutal there as well. Charleston, America’s most popular tourist city, is all but uninhabitable this August and I have only just returned from California where, simply put, the weather is terrible.

My first hernia has kept me off the beach and out of the pool. The prescribed pain medication turned out to be worse than the discomfort I now feel without it, as I (not-so) patiently await word on just when someone… anyone… with something sharper than a butter knife will operate. Until today I have been distracted enough by the whole thing so that word processing an email, let alone an article, just had to be placed on a backburner.

And what is there to write about anyway? I am disappointed in the current streaming season, politics has been depressing, and besides, I semi-resolved a long time ago to refrain from writing about events on our national scene. What can I say? I like being liked… enjoy the feeling of a certain amount of popularity. I do not mind folks disagreeing with something negative I might write about one of their favorite shows on TV or Broadway, but I really do not want to get one of those “Dear commie, Jew, bastard… take me off your email list” missives. Those tend to go a long way toward spoiling my day.

No matter how terrific, I have balked about---and am reluctant to once again rave about---Bear or Hacks in their latest season…  Still, little else has inspired or transpired.

And then, out of nowhere, the best show of this or any season in memory hits the airways. All hail, executive producer, Joe Biden, and producer/star Kamala Harris. Who knew anyone could turn this moribund, perfectly dreadful electoral season into the television event of this or any summer in memory? Trump getting shot did not do it, the President of the United States melting down on national television to his opponent’s barrage of bluff and bluster did not do it, nor did the prospect of a rematch of two heavyweights. No one… I mean no one… gave a damn about this election.

Now they do. There is true excitement in the air… a real sense of joy,  adventure, and patriotism. How could that happen with a candidate who supposedly no one knew or liked? And who knew the Democrats had a bench?

That Governor from Pennsylvania is the best political orator since Obama. Pete Buttigieg stays fresh on more TV shows in one evening than any other surrogate I have ever seen. The guy from Arizona is a former astronaut for God’s sake, and then there is the fella who got picked as a running mate… Mr. Rogers on steroids.

There is excitement in and on the air in a way I have not seen in a decade, and it came out of nowhere. That takes some kind of showmanship skill… and a whole lot of luck.

Trump, up until now the ultimate showman in politics, got a little ahead of his skis… just a wee bit overconfident. How could he not? His opponent, despite being the President of the United States, was characterized as unelectable no matter how competent he might be for State occasions or in the Oval office. The old man just was not playing well on TV and there was no getting over that perfectly awful appearance against Trump in the debate. That toothpaste was never going back in the tube.

To add to his luster, Trump got his ear nicked by a would-be assassin then popped to his feet with a defiant gesture to let the crowd know he was intact and ready to continue the fight. There is no way this guy could lose; how could he not be confident of that? So confident as to listen to Donald Jr. and Eric about who to pick as his running mate. C’mon, mittendrin you are going to pause for a revival of Dumb and Dumber? Well, why not? Afterall, what difference would it make who got that nod? It is all about Trump and nothing and no one else matters.

And then…

I am not saying Donald Trump is going to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. In fact, I am almost positive the contrary will be the case. America, after all, is a very conservative country… almost always has been… and over the past several years Trump has unleashed some powerful elements into the ether that have fused into some of the most right-wing alliances this country has ever seen. And if you know your American political history, that is saying a lot.

So, I have not given back my brochures from the realtors of southern Spain and Portugal, but… as a self-proclaimed TV pundit… I cannot refrain from extolling kudos over one of the biggest and best TV productions of my lifetime.

Win or lose: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris deserve a trophy. They made my summer. And when you consider the hernia, the pain, the weather, no pool, no beach, and the (not-so)“Dear…” letters that may still arrive in my in-box... That is saying a lot.

 

Barney Rosenzweig