Right Said Fred

There is a lot that I can write down and describe about Fred Rogers.

TBH, when I watched him as a kid, I never really thought of him as standing out amongst the other kids shows. I thought it was another kids program. Looking back, I think maybe I would have been a much better person if I did notice.

Fred Rogers is one of the most unique human beings that I have heard or read about or seen. The stories of him, apocryphal or not, are amazing.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of his program being aired nationally on PBS, and it is telling that despite not being technically on the air in first run or reruns for a few years, that his message is still out there.

Instead of talking about many of his attributes, I would like to mention one of his supposed weaknesses. It is believed by some that Mister Rogers made this generation soft. That by saying "You're special just for being you" that my generation is enabled and selfish/expectant. To me, it is about the interpretation of the message. The interpretation should only go as far as to give self confidence in doing things. Mister Rogers also talked about the benefits of school and work and effort. So he was saying that while you are special, you need to give effort to earn things and to feel really good about yourself.

And as for being soft? Go watch, as many people have, Fred testifying before Congress about Nixon trying to cut PBS funding in half. There is a specific moment which shows his mettle.

It begins at 0:51. Senator Pastore, who has a reputation for being tough minded, clearly asks him in an annoyed fashion if Fred would like to read his statement. 

Fred's response in words and face reaction is fantastic. In non-Rogers talk, it translates to me as 

"I'm not here to fuck around. You will listen to what I have to say and you will not intimidate me." And instantly, Pastore recedes back and Mister Rogers begins to wax poetic.

This is a man with a will of steel wrapped in a mellow package. And there are other instances of this will coming out. 

He sued the KKK in 1990 for trying to imitate him on the phone and spreading racism and he won.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/12/us/klan-is-told-to-stop-imitating-mister-rogers-on-the-phone.html

In 1984, Burger King was using a "Mr. Rodney" to try and sell their burgers. What does Mister Rogers do? He calls the company up and asks them to stop. And the company pulls the ad. That's all it took.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/05/08/Burger-King-pulls-ads/1021452836800/

One more for posterity. Mister Rogers is one of the main reasons that you are allowed to use DVR and back then VHS to tape television shows. The major studios were worried that by losing possible fees because of people not getting their movies legally (sound familiar?) they would be undermined. So they sued Sony, which made Betamax (which got overtaken by VHS) to cease the technology. Into court comes Fred Rogers to testify on behalf of taping television shows and he impressed the court so much that some of his exact words were quoted in the decision ruled in favor of Sony.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/29686/how-mister-rogers-saved-vcr

Fred Rogers was many things to many different people. But one thing that he was definitely not was soft. Which makes his legacy and persona even more unique and it is why that people still celebrate him today.

"Blacklist"ing ARs: An Opinion

I don't usually like to go political like this, but this particular point bothers me. And I think I am on solid ground with it. So here we go.

Recently, in the wake of yet another senseless school shooting and ramped up pressure on the NRA and politicians to enact gun control ( something that most countries have done already, but that's neither here nor there), many different people have had different reactions.

This one, however, bothers me.

http://tvline.com/2018/02/23/the-blacklist-megan-boone-assault-rifles-liz-keen-tweet/#more-918594

In the article linked above, Megan Boone, who plays an FBI Agent on the NBC TV series The Blacklist, declares to her Twitter followers that her character, AN FBI AGENT, will no longer carry an assault rifle in the program. She tweeted:

"Liz Keen will never carry an assault rifle again and I am deeply sorry for participating in glorifying them in the past. Yours, girl from Florida"

Sigh.

The reaction she got to this statement was mixed. I have several thoughts about this, most of them leading to the idea that I think it's a dumb idea.

1. You are playing an FBI Agent. As your character, you should, sometimes, be required to hold and use an assault rifle. A person on Twitter pointed this out to her and she responded "I'm not SWAT."

 IT DOESN'T MATTER. Eliot Ness was not SWAT either and yet he carried around a tommy gun all the time. It is unrealistic for you to declare that you will never handle an assault rifle. Which brings me to point 2.

2. Most people who watch a program should be able to distinguish the fact that you are participating in a fictional TV show. It seems to me that the line between fiction and reality is dissolving away, not just in terms of actual situations, but in terms of people being able to clearly separate the two sides. Now of course, you are going to get crazy people who just can't distinguish between them. These are the people that gun control should be for. But for the others, who make up the majority of society, what is the point of doing this? If you felt so strongly about the use of guns personally in the first place, I don't think an action show would have been the right situation  for you. Plus it seems that you indicted yourself by glorifying guns in the past. Which brings me to point 3.

3. You are not glorifying guns. You are using a gun in an action show. The glorification of guns has already been done. It's been done by Westerns, War Films, Spy Films etc. So IMO, you have added nothing to the glorification of guns. You are simply using a prop in a television series. BTW, I know that several shows and movies have probably done it, but showing the difficulty and physical/mental strain of using a gun would be okay. I once shot a rifle at a Boy Scout camp and the recoil hurt my shoulder. Never fired a full on rifle agan. Guns are hard to use, in both aspects. Show that more.

4. I believe she has said that she will continue to use a handgun. Great because that can't be smuggled in and used to kill people in enclosed spaces. I am usually a proponent of compromise and against extremes, but in this case, given what she has said about the subject and her intent, she has backed herself into a corner. If she doesn't want to be labeled a fraud, either dump guns altogether or leave them all in. One or the other. Otherwise, the whole action looks self serving and phony.

IMO, she should just keep the assault rifles in. Because it just seems like she is trying to make a stand for something that she doesn't really have responsibility over. It feels like she's doing it just for the sake of doing it. I don't mean to be mean to her, but it's what I think.

What do you think?

Marvel's Batmen

As I type this post, the movie "Black Panther" is printing money at the box office. Marvel Studios has, for the last decade, been able to use a brand new type of franchising to create hit after box office hit. And while others have tried to follow them up (Sony, Fox, WB) none of them have really come close to success of the MCU.

As a DC fan, this bothers me a bit, although I don't go see DC movies either (hell I dont go see any movies). IMO they've been horribly mismanaged, but they will be great again because the characters are too good to keep down.

But back to Marvel; and this is something that I have read and observed. Stan Lee was once asked about the DC characters and said that Batman was the closest thing DC had to a Marvel character. Given the backstory and other elements, I think that argument makes sense. But what I've noticed is that Marvel Comics, which btw is NOT taking advantage of the success of the MCU, seems to have several characters that I would call "Batman-ish" Taking elements of Batman and putting it into their own characters. Here are some examples of said characters:

Iron Man- This is probably the easiest to discern. Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are both billionaires who use hi-tech gadgetry to fight crime. They also have public personas of being playboys, even though Tony Stark is a bit less of an act.

The Punisher- Frank Castle discovers that his family (wife and daughter) are killed by criminals and he decides to serve vengeance on them. Deadly vengeance. Batman going over the line, so to speak.

Moon Knight- Origin story is nothing like Batman, but both are non powered humans who use gadgets and use the night as cover and a weapon. Their costumes are similar as well, although Moon Knight's is white.

Black Panther- The man of the hour. Black Panther is dressed in a very similar costume to Batman, plus like Batman, he has a "kingdom" to protect. With Black Panther, Wakanda is literally a kingdom, but it still serves as BP's "Gotham City". The link between these two supposedly goes even further than that. Black Panther was created in July 1966, during two relative phenomena;

    1. The Civil Rights movement.
    2. The Batman TV Show.

Would it be fair for Marvel try to capitalize and create a black Batman-esque character?


In the end, what I am saying is that Marvel Comics has a lot of things going for them. But they don't have Batman, who I believe has surpassed Superman and Spiderman to become the most popular superhero of the day. And Marvel tried to compensate with many different characters with different characteristics of Batman, some of which have carved out niches for themselves. But in the end, there is only one Batman

Thoughts

Holmes, Sweet Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is arguably the first major pop culture icon ever created. It not only has to do with the character itself and his intricacies, but he came into popularity just as mass media was starting to rumble. His stories were printed in the Strand magazine, which was available to everyone in London And the movie industry, which was just coming into existence, latched onto Holmes immediately as  source for entertainment. It is no wonder why Sherlock Holmes is, per Guinness, the most widely portrayed human literary character (Dracula, a non human, holds the overall title).

And as most fans of Sherlock Holmes know, while Benedict Cumberbatch is very popular amongst the young crowd of new fans to embrace the character, the title of "best Sherlock Holmes" deservedly goes to Jeremy Brett. The logo next to my name in this blog is a picture of him.

There is a lot I can say about Brett's portrayal, His episodes which ran on ITV and PBS from 1984-1994, are must watch items for those who like Holmes and for those who want to get to know the detective. But to represent how good of a job he did, I would like to put up an interview he did in 1988 with Terry Wogan.

The most brilliant part of this interview is unfortunately split between part I and II but I do suggest you look at. He talks about the method he uses to play Holmes and then, all of the sudden, this jovial actor transforms himself, right on the spot, into the great detective himself. It is an amazing job.

He never got to finish the whole canon. He was bipolar, which some people say helped contribute to his performance, and he had a major smoking habit and a weak heart. He died in 1995. 

I go on Twitter sometimes to see what people say about him, and it is good to know that people still talk about him, in this day and age of Benedict Cumberbatch, who was also a fan. Other major celebrity fans include Daniel Radcliffe, who credits Brett's performance for teaching him "how to play a completely over the top character by playing him real", and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was a co-author of a Holmes-esque novel. 

I actually was into Agatha Christie televised mysteries before Sherlock Holmes, but now I have dived both feet in into this canon. And for those who want to or for those that haven't yet seen him, I recommend wholeheartedly watching his stories. They are a great pleasure. 

The New York Jets: A Nowhere Franchise

Look, this is going to be just short and to the point. The Jets are a franchise that is nothing. Their carbon footprint is zero. They really have no strong base of fandom. They are caught in between Giants fans and Eagles fans in terms of territory. They don't have their own stadium. Their media reporters are hacks. They are laughed at nationally, even if sometimes they don't deserve it. Their fans are battered to the point of not ever being happy or wanting to be happy.

Seriously go to this link: https://forums.jetnation.com/forum/5-new-york-jets-message-board/

You will find a lot of people reveling in misery and being angry when somebody dares to be positive.

Their owner is a silver spooner who is in London and knows next to little about football. Their head coach is a moron (JMHO).

They are the Chicago Cubs but worse because nobody thinks they are loveable. And liking this team sometimes makes me want to go mad. Not suicidal but it makes me think about what I am worth. I know that's the wrong way to think about it, but it happens. I can't lie to you or myself.

LIke the Beatles said, I might be a nowhere man sitting in his nowhere land rooting for his nowhere franchise.