Mixed greens.

Oh, look, Eric Rudolph is sorry — at least a little bit:

Convicted serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph apologized Monday to his victims and their families for his 1996 bombing of Centennial Olympic Park, in which one person died and more than 100 were wounded.

He did not apologize for any of his other attacks, including the bombing of a family planning clinic.

Because they deserved it, the baby-killers. Also, some of them were gay and were probably going to get all gay-married and stuff. Those folks at Olympic park might have been pro-life, just like Eric.

I hope he enjoys eating hot dogs with Terry Nichols. I bet he’s a fun lunch date.

Well, someone’s feeling testy today, eh?

You might say. En route to looking up something else, I found this page from an Islamic swimwear catalog. It’ll give you an idea what “freedom” will look like for women in the new, improved Iraq. Why, some of those sluts are showing their feet! And what’s with those drawstring-waist tunics? Don’t they know the barest suggestion of a female form can drive a man to madness?

Better to burka the lot of ’em, just to be safe.

A bunch o’ bloggage today, I fear, and little else. I was busy, or at least preoccupied:

A moment of silence — and then many more, please — for Dr. Robert Moog, inventor of the synthesizer that bears his name, who died Sunday. Alan hates Emerson, Lake and Palmer, in fact cursed their name just the other day, in his own mild-mannered way: “For one horrible moment I thought they were playing ELP, but it was something else.” I saw them in concert in college, and I remember two things about it — Keith Emerson looked pretty cool in leather pants, and Mark Brunswick did a hilarious impersonation of him later in the student newspaper office, using a typewriter, a Coke machine and a wire-service terminal.

Ah, electronic music. I came of age when it did, and never thought much of it, from “Switched-on Bach” to Kraftwerk. When I think of Yes, I smell marijuana — the two are that closely linked in my mind, from years of sitting in someone’s airless dorm room, forbidden to talk while Rick Wakeman’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” played on the stereo. After a few listenings, I could imitate David Hemmings pretty well: “Voices, voices, voices, they heard voices,” but no one ever wanted to hear it. Maybe, if we were lucky, we’d get an encore of “Long Distance Runaround” or “Roundabout,” during which we could perhaps murmur in quiet conversation, because it wasn’t quite so deep, lyrically: In and around the lake, mountains come out of the sky and they STAND THERRRRRRRE.

You know, it’s amusing for a while, but as Diane Keaton says in “Manhattan,” you get over it.

A few months ago a TV station in New York fired a reporter for getting caught, on an open mic, cursing at some idiots trying to disrupt his live shot. I’d be interested in hearing from any TV journalists who’ve had to deal with situations like this, in which a guy mooned a live shot, unbeknownst to the reporter.

I think it’s pretty funny, myself, but then, I think 90 percent of all local-TV live shots are fairly stupid: Yes, Bill and Monica, I’m standing on a street corner where, a mere five hours ago, a man was shot. Everyone has gone home now — really they went home about four and a half hours ago — but you can see that the corner remains, and I am standing on it. What? What moon? I know of no moon…

Coincidentally, the station in question, WBNS-TV, has a history of live-shot hijinks. One reporter lost his upper plate during a report a few years ago, and not long ago, an anchor was caught on camera flipping the bird, on the set. Must be something in the contracts.

Finally, summer is definitely on its way out. The temps today barely cracked 70, and the light is growing sort of autumnal. I could write a mournful few hundred words about it, but I’ll save that for September.

Posted at 9:40 pm in Uncategorized |
 

12 responses to “Mixed greens.”

  1. brian stouder said on August 22, 2005 at 11:36 pm

    That was a funny link to the Columbus moon-shot!

    Years ago, Fort Wayne’s channel 33 did a live remote interview with a couple of gang members – (it might have been after Vernon Jordon was shot) and a cascading torrent of variations on the word ‘fuck’ ensued (it sounded like a typical episode of The Wire, come to think of it!) until the screen went blank – and then eventually a somewhat harried-looking fellow back at the studio appeared and began apologizing.

    Another time, the weathercaster on channel 33 (John Moss?) suddenly stopped talking and dropped his chin – and said something like “That is the largest cockroach I have ever seen!” – and then the camera panned down, and there he was, scuttering across the floor!

    And another time, many years ago on live Fort Wayne TV, Ken Kurtz at Channel 15 news threw up during the live broadcast. Actually – his cheeks bulged and he simply bailed out. The camera stayed tightly on his empty chair until Bob Speaks appeared and resumed the news broadcast.

    Haven’t seen any moons, though

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  2. mary said on August 23, 2005 at 12:09 am

    Last week a guy on the local early morning news was asking people at a gas station what they thought of the prices, and one guy used some colorful language. Served the reporter right, though, since the guy had tried to wave him off. Robert Kovacik (I’m not sure if he spells his name that way)will never insist that someone say a few words on mike again I bet.

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  3. John said on August 23, 2005 at 7:56 am

    Switched-On Bach…that brings back memories.

    I am sure you know the Walter/Wendy Carlos story.

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  4. Nance said on August 23, 2005 at 10:53 am

    I do not know the Wendy/Walter Carlos story. Share.

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  5. Dick Walker said on August 23, 2005 at 11:12 am

    Re: Islamic Swimwear

    Feet? You noticed her feet? My God, her whole FACE is hanging out there for any Abdul or Muhammad to ogle.

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  6. MarkH said on August 23, 2005 at 11:24 am

    You may be on to something with those WBNS contractural obligations, Nancy.

    WAY back when (1979?), I was watching Channel 10 news one night. Lou Forrest cuts to the tape, only no tape, just blank screen and silence for 15-20 seconds. Suddenly a voice comes on, “Awww, Jesus CHRIST!!” (pause, then very loud) “Did you all hear that? I just said JESUS CHRIST!!!”

    The blank screen and silence remained for a full two minutes. Forrest then re-appeared so composed he looked like a talking cadaver. No apologies, no comment, next story. Working in local radio at the time, I was impressed. Now there, I thought, was a professional. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Lou’s screed; someone in the booth panicked and switched on the director’s mike.

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  7. John said on August 23, 2005 at 11:41 am

    The creator/arranger(?) of Switched-On Bach and The Well-Tempered Synthesizer was born Walter Carlos and later became Wendy Carlos. I supposed this is just a side note on a brilliant mind that brought classical music alive via the synthesizer.

    She has a website http://www_wendycarlos_com/

    for some reason the censor doesn’t like the name so please replaces the “_” with “.”

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  8. Karen said on August 23, 2005 at 4:12 pm

    I LOATHE the 5-hours-later live shots. My husband and I watch the local news (SF Bay Area) and joke that all the reporters are lined up outside the station for their “on-the-scene” pieces during the late local news. It’s always dark and rarely is there anything that would let you identify their location, other than the on-screen graphic. They could be anywhere!

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  9. Nance said on August 23, 2005 at 5:35 pm

    After one of the hurricanes last year, my friend who lives down there said the TV reporters were taking turns wading into this one enormous puddle to do their standup. There was actually a line. The surrounding area wasn’t flooded at all, but one part of it was, so that’s where they stood.

    Ah, the good visual.

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  10. basset said on August 24, 2005 at 12:18 am

    when I worked in local news in Nashville, we did quite a few of our gratuitous live shots on the front steps of the station, with traffic going by in the background, and labeled it “downtown Nashville.”

    we called it the “porch-cam,” and it’s still in use.

    Rick Wakeman, on the other hand, seems like the kind of guy I’d enjoy hanging out with. He spoke at our local film festival this summer, spent about an hour just playing the piano and telling stories, and it was the most entertaining thing I’d seen in quite awhile.

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  11. Maggie said on August 24, 2005 at 9:02 am

    Thanks for the link to the Islamic swimwear catalogue. I particularly like the suit called “Fishgirl.” The name alone should put an end to salacious male slavering!

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  12. Debbie said on August 28, 2005 at 11:54 am

    I like that Islamic swimwear. I want some, only without the headgear. Only thing is, once the suit’s wet, it no longer hides what I want it to hide, which is the shape underneath.

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