If you’ve ever seen a crime-themed film or television show, you have no doubt heard a character–generally a detective or investigator–instruct a lowly technician to “zoom and enhance” some bit of surveillance video. No matter how distant or grainy the footage, the technician merely turns a few knobs on a console, and, ta da!, perfect high-definition video quality. It’s ridiculous. Or so I thought.
Tonight the History Channel is broadcasting a special entitled Stealing Lincoln’s Body. “Outstanding”, I thought when I saw the listing, since not only is the Rays vs. Red Sox game currently on a rain delay in the ninth inning, but I am a passionate Lincoln fan, and am presently reading David Herbert Donald’s wonderful biography of the greatest of all Americans. History Channel productions, however, have frequently failed to impress me, commonly employing silly reenactments, and generally lacking the authoritative scholarship associated with PBS efforts. Stealing Lincoln’s Body has some slightly silly reenactments, sure, but it is much better than average for a History Channel project. And it has something else that struck me as revolutionary.
Describing Lincoln’s funeral procession through New York City, a famous image of a young Theodore Roosevelt observing Lincoln’s coffin passing beneath his window is shown. But, like magic, the image appears to come to life, and from the apparent distance at which the photo was taken, the camera zooms in on the two figures in the window, and, lo, there is the boy Roosevelt. They zoomed and enhanced! They did it with a couple other historic photos, too, and each time the effect was startling.
I’m sorry I ever doubted you, television detectives.
I just finished watching the most recent Frontline episode, entitled “The Suicide Tourist”. It was, simply put, the most powerful and affecting thing I have ever seen on television. I write this with tears in my eyes, and an entirely new perspective on physician assisted suicide.
The program documents a man named Craig Ewert, who, five months earlier had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. After his diagnosis he began to rapidly lose motor function, and when the film begins, he is paralyzed from the neck down. His wife of several decades is with him constantly. Mr. Ewert has decided that he would prefer suicide to total paralysis followed by prolonged death, so he travels to Zurich, where assisted suicide is legal, and with the help of a group called Dignitas, ends his life, with his wife holding his hand, and Beethoven playing on the radio.
What makes this program so powerful is that one gets to know Mr. Ewert. He is a likable, chatty person, who, until his diagnosis was living an active, interesting life, which, were it not for the disease, he would love to continue. But he fears that if he waits too long, he will lose the ability to move a muscle, at which point assisted suicide would be impossible, leaving him in a prolonged vegetative state, causing his family years of agony. No one watching could feel anything but profound sympathy for him and his family. And when he finally drinks the drug that will stop his heart, which he knows will separate him from everyone and everything he has ever known and loved, the tragedy is overwhelming.
I used to think that only ghoulish doctors exploited suffering people by helping them end their lives. But “The Suicide Tourist” depicts something else entirely. I am a man of strong faith. I don’t take matters of death lightly. But as someone who feels for those who suffer, I cannot ignore that, for some, death is the more dignified, humane, and, ultimately, loving alternative.
I don’t want to take the smile away from anybody’s face, but if you want to witness the most profound portrait of human courage and dignity, watch “The Suicide Tourist”.
Though my website fiasco has put me a week behind, you can rest assured that the Tonight Show debacle has me deeply depressed (as much as one can be for a television show). As you might expect, I came out strongly for Team Coco. As I wrote back in June, when O’Brien began what I expected to be a long career as the host of the flagship late-night talk show, I have been watching Conan since the mid-1990s, when he, Andy, and Max did the goofiest things on Late Night. I was sad when Andy left that show to try his hand at sitcom fame. I was sad again when one show after another was canceled after only a few months, leaving him off TV for years at a time, only to turn up in small roles on other soon-to-be-canceled shows, like Arrested Development. So, when it was clear that Andy would be rejoining Conan for the Tonight Show, it seemed that all was right in the television world. And, though the show got off to an awkward start, with Andy spending most of the time behind his podium off screen, by late autumn he was spending most of the show on the chair next to Conan, just like in the old days. When Conan announced that he wouldn’t be moving the program to 12:05, my first thought was, “Poor Andy, he can’t keep a job for more than six months”.
While my heart wishes that Conan would have just taken the later time slot, I cannot blame him for standing up for his convictions. The blame for all of this lies with the staggeringly incompetent NBC executives and Jay Leno. I remember the Leno/Letterman feud back in the early-1990s, and while I certainly preferred Letterman to Leno even then, I felt that Leno did have a valid claim to take over for Johnny Carson. And, while I recognize that Leno must have been bitter that NBC asked him to step aside in 2004, even as he was the top-rated late night show, that cannot excuse his conduct now. As David Letterman explained, when the network does you wrong, walk. If Jay resented losing the Tonight Show, he should have gone somewhere else. And, when their ten o’clock experiment failed and NBC told him he was canceled, he should have said, “Thanks, guys, but that’s enough. I’m out of here”. But no. He must really, really have been desperate to get back what he once had. Nothing else can explain why he would have been willing to either a) force all the other late night programs back a half hour, or b) put Conan in the untenable situation of having to decide to go along with it or leave.
Once it was clear that Conan’s days were numbered, the shows became more poignant and even more hilarious. The audiences were in a frenzy, and Conan was on fire. It made it that much more heart-breaking when, last Friday, they played a montage of clips from the run of the show, including the fantastic bit that opened his first episode as host, when he ran from New York City to Hollywood. It ended with the message “To Be Continued…”, but who knows what will happen. Neil Young playing “Long May You Run”, Tom Hanks, and “Freebird” with an all-star band, ended the show on an epic high.
My greatest hope is that Conan took the forty million dollars, handed it out to his staff including Andy and Max, and told everyone, “Take this money, have an eight month vacation, and meet me in September. We’re starting a new show”. But, even if he gets an offer from Fox, I don’t know if Andy and Max will join him. No matter the time slot, and no matter that Fox is the highest rated network, a new show will never be the Tonight Show. If he doesn’t get an offer from Fox he’s sunk. Cable would be an insult.
I was looking forward to spending the next decade watching The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. But last Friday, that dream died.
On Sunday night I watched the season premiere of The Simpsons – the first episode of the show’s twenty-first season. It was a weak episode, actually. Comic Book Guy writes a comic about a super hero with the power of all super heroes, and Homer stars in the film adaptation, which ends in disaster. Fans of the show, of course, will find the plot a bit too much like the time they made a Radioactive Man movie starring Milhouse.
Nevertheless, The Simpsons is important to me. I remember watching the first episode, and every one thereafter. Its glory days are long behind it, but it still offers up one or two good episodes each season, and, for familiarity’s sake, I’d just assume it go on forever.
On January 31, 1988, I watched the pilot episode of a television program called The Wonder Years. Though the show was set in the late 1960s, I related to it because I was about the same age as the main character. As the series began, Kevin Arnold was starting junior high; so was I - in real life. Through subsequent seasons, the show dealt with many topics relevant to my (or any young man’s) life. But one theme of The Wonder Years was always outside the realm of my experience: Kevin Arnold’s difficult relationship with his father. Many episodes dealt with this topic, and it always made me simultaneously uncomfortable and grateful. I felt uncomfortable because the tension seemed so real, and I knew that many fathers and sons had strained relations. I felt grateful because I did not. And though my life has certainly not been free of regret, and though “I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought / And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste”, I have never had to regret any aspect of my relationship with my father. We have always got along well.
So, as I sat with my father on a blanket under the open sky last Saturday night, watching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play “Racing in the Street”, I felt like things couldn’t get better.
Sure, it looked like the sky might open up any time and unleash a raging storm. But aside from a few sprinkles here and there, the weather held out. And, sure, I was a little worried about how bad our view would be way back on the lawn, but that actually turned out great, too. And, if $56 per ticket seems expensive, we did get three solid hours–twenty-seven songs–of rock.
Miriam and I met my dad at my Uncle Tom’s apartment in Tampa. It could not have been more conveniently located. We ate an early dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, which was enjoyable and new to me. We made it to the Florida State Fairgrounds before six o’clock, but they didn’t open the gate for a little while after that. We weren’t too far back in the line at the gate, but there were still enough people that I was slightly nervous about getting a decent spot on the lawn. Plus, while were were standing there, the sky, which had spent the earlier part of the day raining, then the afternoon threatening more, began doing just that. It didn’t last, though, and by the time we reached the grass we were hopeful. Though there was a mad dash for the closest seats on the lawn, we managed to find a great spot.
As I expected, “Badlands” opened the show, but for the next two songs I was nervous. Springsteen’s voice was shot. It wasn’t that he couldn’t sing in tune; he couldn’t sing. I honestly expected him to call the show off. But he drank some sort of hot beverage, saying, “I’ll be better in a few songs”. Sure enough, he was. By the time he got to “Seeds” his voice was strong. In the request portion of the show, which has become a fixture of the last couple tours, Bruce grabbed just about every sign from the pit. I saw some fools asking for “Ramrod” and “I’m a Rocker”. Fools. I did see someone after my own heart requesting “Drive All Night”, though, of course, we didn’t get it. What we did get was “Growing Up”, requested by a child in the front row, “All or Nothing at All” which has only been played six times ever, and “Jole Blon” which hasn’t been played since 1981. So, we did okay, especially considering that a few nights later he played “Ramrod”.
I was hoping to hear some classic songs I had not yet heard live, and I got them, including, in the encore, “Rosalita”. After “American Land”, I figured the show was over. But the crowd was so frantic that he busted out “Bobby Jean” and “Dancing in the Dark”, then, finally, “Hungry Heart”. The place was out of control, and I didn’t think he would try and top it, so we grabbed our blanket and were making our way out when the noise got even louder. Something was happening on stage that we couldn’t see. Then we heard Bruce grab the mic and say, “I guess we forgot one”, before the opening strains of “Thunder Road”. It was incredible.
Still, in a show which included so many highlights (including an enthusiastic version of–of all things–Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More”, which, as you know, is my personal anthem), perhaps the best single performance of the night was an astonishing version of “Johnny 99″. It turned into a rollicking railroad reel with dueling guitar solos and showboating. It was thrilling.
Nevertheless, ages and ages hence, when I think back on that night, I’ll most fondly remember hearing “Racing in the Street” while seated on a blanket with my father under the open sky.
