Love this, someone added “Single Ladies” over the original Charleston music.
The video says Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance and Lucie Arnaz, but that’s Ginger Rogers. It’s from a 1971 episode of “Here’s Lucy” called “Ginger Rogers Comes to Tea.”
Category: entertainment
Hollywood, the beginning
I’ve been watching this 13 part documentary about the film industry just called, “Hollywood,” it’s on YouTube. If you’re bored these days, this is something you might like. I’m still trying to catch up with Shameless and I love watching Breaking Bad, which I never get tired of, but this is something you don’t have to really think about and it’s enjoyable.
It’s great if this subject interests you, it starts from silent films and explains how it all begin in Ft. Lee, New Jersey and then ended up in Hollywood, CA. Each episode is 50 minutes or so and it’s mostly scenes from the actual movies they are talking about with commentary and interviews from people such as DW Griffith, Louise Brooks, Hal Roach and so many old stars and directors from the time. Since the documentary was filmed in 1980, many of these people were still around to discuss the time and the films and you see the movie footage of what they are discussing.
It’s interesting how actress Lillian Gish and writer Adela Rogers St. Johns, who thinks she was part of it all, feel that silent films were the be all and end all and when sound started, it was the beginning of the end of the art. Seriously.
Here is the first episode and from here you can go through the rest of them.
I’ve been watching it on tv where I have the YouTube app, so it’s more enjoyable on the large screen.
Caronavirus is our Jaws
I was watching Jaws the other day. I don’t know if it’s my favorite movie, but I must have seen it 100 times. Every time I come across it on tv, I stop what I’m doing and I watch.
I happened to turn it on in the exact scene that reminded me of Florida these days. Mayor Larry Vaughn of Amity Island in Jaws wants the beaches open for July 4th through the whole summer, while the police want the beaches closed to protect people from the shark, the mayor wants the beaches open; sort of like the dolts in Florida these days who feel the beaches should be open, just adding to the spread of caronavirus.
No sheltering in place for these idiots.
The reason I like Jaws is not about the shark, the part I like is the little beach town in New England and that point in time, the mid 1970s. I love that. It reminds me so much of the Hamptons where I spend part of the summer with my cousins and I am hoping to be able to be there this summer, but if these idiots in parts of Florida are still spreading the virus by opening beaches and other businesses, who knows what summer will bring.
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Three stories about today
CBS Sunday Morning had some great stories this week, they were all feel good stories about the caronavirus and our sheltering in place. This first one is of interest to me because I’ve been thinking it – it’s about the backgrounds you see on people’s zoom reporting. It’s funny. I like the Lady Gaga one because she is always all out there being the most of the most and yet her home background is so plain – it’s her home office. Others go out of the way to show off awards and things like that.
I often wonder what I would show. I don’t zoom, I do Facetime, but with people who know me and have been here, so I don’t have to choose a background to impress.
Another story was about artist Nadir Nelson and his work. He’s an award winning artist and you can see why here.
Beven Strickland of North Carolina got up off her couch and headed to NYC to help in the hospital. It’s a beautiful story about a beautiful hero.
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Lady Gaga announced ‘One World’ concert
I was watching Morning Joe yesterday and there was Lady Gaga talking about a concert that will be on MSNBC Saturday, April 18, the “One World: Together at Home” concert, a sort of Live Aid, but it’s not a fundraiser, it’s just a night of entertainment to get everyone’s mind off our current situation.
What made me laugh was her background. I had written about how everyone has such interesting homes, many with bookshelves, and one of the richest, most famous women in the world has this plain white background, with a desk lamp. While she is all that when on the stage, she is just one of us in “real life.” I had seen others on tv with their awards in the background, you know, an actual shelf or grammys or emmys or whatever, but not Gaga. Love that about her.
Here she is on YouTube, announcing the concert – same background.
Comic awareness
The Daily Cartoonist recently had an article about the younger generation not being aware of past comic references, like when Pete Buttigieg was compared to Alfred E. Neuman, many younger people had no clue what that meant, or Andy Capp was referenced on a late night show and it went flat, younger people didn’t know Andy Capp.
I find this interesting because when I’m cartooning, I try to think in my head about the audience. Who is my audience? I go back and forth. I make references to things in the past but more often than not I refer to current things that the older audience doesn’t understand. That was common when I published daily a few years back.
I would use a current term associated with today’s youth and the readers didn’t have a clue. But then I realized that perhaps it is because of where I was posting. It was basically a site read by older folks, people who actually hold the newspaper in their hands and read comics and news!
When I start publishing Tomversation on May 4th, I will publish on my own website, but also I will publish on Facebook here and Instagram here and I assume that most of the readers on those platforms will be younger more than older, although Facebook seems to be out of favor with the younger crowd, but they still like Instagram.
So it will be interesting to see which group accepts my work more, or which group understands and gets my work more – not that it’s anything too complicated, but I do make references that will be from the past or more current, the spectrum that covers my knowledge and age I guess. But I’ve always liked the fact that not everyone gets a comic. I feel when that happens it’s an inside joke.
I didn’t understand this Tiger King thing that was going around – the memes and stories and things people were saying and posting online, so I looked it up and I’m all caught up now; not with the show, but knowing what Tiger King is about and how he fits into current pop culture.
Giving life to the neighborhood
There are these construction workers across the street building one of those big boxy, white, zero-lot-line townhouse projects, which I usually hate. But I’m glad to see them and hear them every day. It brings a sense of normalcy.
For some reason, construction work is permitted to proceed in the county while most other businesses are at a standstill, I’m not sure why, but in this one case I’m glad.
Each morning I hear them banging away, yelling back and forth to each other and giving life to the neighborhood.
Strange how things have changed in this crazy time. Things we hated we now love, things we loved, we now hate.
My new favorite person is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, I always liked him, but love when he is on tv or the internet, speaking to us in his clear, calm voice.
I see the Jacob Javits Center is being turned into a field hospital in New York City. That’s where New York Comic Con takes place ever October. I don’t want to rush the year, but I keep dreaming of that day, when all is right with the world again and we’ll be walking through the huge complex thinking of what was there some months before. I pray for that day.
Travels with Farley
One of my favorite older comic strips is Travels with Farley. I remember seeing it in The San San Francisco Chronicle when I would visit, but I see from an article by Bill Van Nieekerken, that it was a nationally published strip for many years, starting in 1975, and in 1985, Phil Frank, the Farley cartoonist, moved to San Francisco and the strip was then only posted locally mostly about local issues, those are the ones I remember.
The strips are popping up along with other older strips on a Facebook page called The Batavia Funny (and Not So Funny) Pages and I love seeing them. Even though they are dated, for some reason they speak to me. They always remind me of San Francisco, but they are funny.
A lot of the reruns I’m reading covered the 1976 elections and Jimmy Carter/Gerald Ford and so many of the strips reflect life in the ’70s from elections to inflation. In the ’70s, Farley travele around the country and met people from all walks of life and they discussed the issues of the day. Reading them now makes me want to go back.
Recently there was a parade in town and a guy in the parade looked like Farley! I took his picture and said, “You look like the old Farley comic strip character!” he just smiled and I don’t think he knew what I was talking about, but he was the spitting image of the comic character.
The strips here are a few random ones from 1976 and 1977.
Skyping the news
I like seeing everyone’s houses and offices when they skype into the news.
Al Roker has been doing the weather from his kitchen at home on the Today Show.
He shows different angles of the room on different days.
Here Ari Melber is interviewing our Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Suarez has been all over tv lately because he has the corona-virus. But interestingly enough, many people are asking him why he doesn’t shut down the beaches that are crammed with spring breakers and he may be too polite to explain that the City of Miami really doesn’t have big sandy beaches. All those beaches you see are in Coral Gables or Miami Beach of course, or Key Biscayne, so Suarez has no jurisdiction over these beaches. But I heard the county stepped in and shut down the beaches to protect those college kids from themselves.
Ari Melber on MSNBC interviews a lot of people from their homes.
Joe Biden has the best room, looks like a comfy den, well appointed.
This is a doctor, you can tell by the degrees on the wall.
Books are a common denominator, I’ve noticed many people are in their home offices or living rooms, which have great book shelves.
Another bookshelf, a small one.
Here is a bookshelf and a living room setup.
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A sense of normalcy
I’ve noticed one semblance of normalcy – tv an tv commercials. All of our tv shows are on and the commercials are running with them – KFC, McDonalds, Perrier, cars, computers, JC Penney, Macys – they are all still running commercials. Makes me feel like things will be all right.
And the newspaper is delivered every day. I know many of you don’t read the printed paper, but trust me – it’s there on the doorstep every morning.
But I am enjoying the sense of solitude. I know many aren’t, but I am usually home alone in the day working anyway. My only concern is lack of business – and money coming in. I applied for a deferral of mortgage payments and hopefully the state or country will just automatically do that like they did in New York state. Also I’m hearing good things about 0% small business loans, so I am applying for that.
I do agree with Trump on one thing – the only thing I’ve ever agreed with Trump on – is that the economy will come roaring back when this virus mess is over. When people start making money again and people are “let out” of their houses, they’ll want to spend, not so much spend for the sake of spending, but they’ll want to go out to restaurants; go to the movies, travel – they’ll feel like birds let out of cage and I think the economy will roar back sooner than later.
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