danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

My friend Jeff has had all manner of dirty, back-breaking jobs, going back to our high school days when he washed dishes at Shoney’s.  Later, he worked in the sewage treatment business, which sometimes required that he stand waist-deep in unimaginably horrible human waste.  He’s had to work long night shifts, drive all over town and outside of town, lift heavy things, and sometimes combinations of those things.  But it was always for somebody else, and I don’t think it felt very rewarding.

Several years ago, he moved to Miami.  It was a logical move.  Unless you have an advanced degree or some other special qualification,  Gainesville can be a tough place to find work.  Plus, Sandi was in Miami.

About that time, Jeff got involved in a business that is far more necessary and profitable in South Florida than it is here: animal removal.  In Miami, if somebody has an alligator or large snake in his backyard, or an opossum or raccoon in his attic, he calls a company to get rid of it.  Jeff worked for a business that did just that.  Still, it was working for someone else, and the boss was getting wealthy while Jeff did the work.

So, Jeff started his own business called Miami Animal Removal, and last week he was on TV.  Wednesday night, on a Discovery Channel show called Verminators, Jeff was shown capturing peacocks that were creating a disturbance in a residential area.  Even on TV, he seemed just like the Jeff I’ve known for years.  Sure, he fell down in slow motion, and a peacock defecated on him, but he was on TV, and he’s doing it for himself.

Filed under: Animals, Friends, Television on August 2nd, 2009 | 1 Comment »

The generation that first witnessed men fly heavier-than-air machines, then sixty years later reach the Moon and return safely to Earth, is no more.  The technological “giant leap” that endeavor required is still awesome to contemplate.  But the goal, however ambitious, was clear to many, even from aviation’s infancy.

I am not sure the same can be said of television.  Certainly, the generation that first developed the technology still lives.  But, unlike the pioneers of aviation who predicted space flight, I doubt many involved in the development of TV could have anticipated what the technology would look like today.  With the obvious exception of color broadcasts, my early TV experiences were probably not so different from those of kids growing up a generation before me.  Our set was fairly small, required an antenna, had no remote control, and received maybe four or five channels.  Today, though, TV is unlike anything I could have ever imagined.

While I was growing up, a 27″ television was considered very large.  A TV over 30″ was enormous.  Anything bigger than that–a projection TV, for example–was something you’d only see at a sports bar.  When I moved back to Gainesville in 2000, I bought a 27″ TV at Best Buy on Archer Road.  It was too big to fit in the back of my car, so Jeff and I took it out of its box, flattened that, and put the TV itself in the back seat.  I felt like a king with such a big screen.  For the first month I lived at 1600 4th Avenue North, I got free cable.  That is common in Gainesville, since everyone moves in August, and Cox often needs a month to connect new customers, and disconnect former customers.  Alas, they had cut me off just before the Sydney Olympics. Today I watch a TV larger than I ever thought I’d own.  And it looks better than I suspect anyone fifty years ago thought television could ever look.

On this enormous TV, I can choose from among a couple dozen high-definition channels.  Generally, I’ll choose PBS, or one of a handful of network shows that I enjoy.  We get a few movie channels in HD, too, which is nice.  In fact, I essentially avoid watching anything in low-def now.  I don’t mean to sound snooty about it, but once you have seen 1080p, 420i is unacceptable.  SDTV is the visual equivalent of hearing the latest digitally-mastered stereophonic recording played on an Edison wax cylinder.

One of the high-def channels we get is MLB, the Major League Baseball channel, and my interest in it came about in a strange way.

Repeats and syndication are probably as old as TV programming.  When I was very little, I remember watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, and several other shows.  Later, when Nick at Night debuted, I loved The Patty Duke Show, The Donna Reed Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Lassie, Mr. Ed, and several others.  I spent whole summers watching these black and white sitcoms with my grandparents.  I noticed that any television show that enjoyed a decent run would eventually be syndicated.  I never thought, however, that repeats of sporting events would be broadcast.  “Why”, I wondered, “would anyone want to watch a game for which they already know the outcome?”

Then, a month or so ago, I was flipping through the guide on the DVR, and I saw a listing on the MLB channel advertising a repeat of a June 17, 1978 game between the Yankees and Angels in which Ron Guidry struck out eighteen batters.  Now, even though I knew exactly what to expect by watching the game, I watched it anyway.  And it was great.  So, last weekend, when MLB was showing a 1998 Cubs vs. Astros game in which Kerry Wood struck out twenty batters, I couldn’t resist.  This is curious, because feats of great pitching don’t become apparent to the live audience until late in a game.  Nevertheless, I wanted to watch a game for which I knew the distinctive feature, and for which I knew the outcome.  It makes no sense.  Last night, I watched game seven of the 1965 World Series, and followed it with a Bob Costas interview of three former Major League umpires.  It was fascinating.

But, most significantly, an MLB channel repeat of an episode from the 1994 Ken Burns documentary, Baseball, so enraptured me, that I straightaway went to the Smathers Library and checked out the entire series on DVD.  I loved all nineteen hours of it.  The history of baseball really is the history of our country, and while the business of professional baseball is ugly, the game of baseball remains one of man’s few perfect inventions.

Filed under: Nostalgia, Sports, Television on June 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »

The summer before I began sixth grade, I started staying up late.  I would watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, followed by Late Night with David Letterman.  I preferred Late Night.  It was quirky, while The Tonight Show was, in my child mind, too middle-of-the-road.  But I remember watching Johnny Carson’s last episode, and David Letterman’s first episode of The Late Show on CBS.  I never got into Jay Leno’s Tonight Show.

Shortly after high school, I began avidly watching Late Night with Conan O’Brien.  It was the wackiest show around, and it perfectly reflected the sense of humor my friends shared.  I spent years staying up until 1:30 in the morning watching that show.  In one episode, Conan talked about (fictional) guests he wouldn’t have back.  One was named “Johnny Airhorn”, and he had a helmet with two airhorns mounted on either side.  Whenever Conan would try to ask him a question or say anything, Johnny Airhorn would blast his horns in deafening fashion. Unfortunately, these old clips are impossible to find.

Miraculously, one of my favorites is on YouTube.  I’ve posted it before, but it’s a perfect example of what Conan does so well.  The premise alone is insane, and the execution is perfect.

Tonight is the premiere of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Andy Richter is back, Max will be there, and my hopes are high.

Filed under: Comedy, Dana Heritage Project, Television on June 1st, 2009 | No Comments »

A baseball player with a .500 batting average would be MVP, but I don’t know if that standard holds for television.  And I know one program that is just that hit or miss:  Masterpiece Theater.  As I wrote recently, Tess of the d’Urbervilles was splendid, but the Wuthering Heights which followed was lousy.  Three weeks ago they began broadcasting Sense and Sensibility, and it was excellent.  The cast–especially the actress playing Elinor Dashwood–was super, and, as you’d expect, the costumes and sets were enchanting.  In the screenshot you see here, Elinor has just received Edward’s proposal.  She had until moments before believed him to be married to another woman, which had broken her heart.  But, as it turns out, that other woman had married his brother instead.  When Elinor hears Edward say that he is, in fact, not married, she is overcome.  What made the performance so affecting was the way the actress playing Elinor went from a placid expression to full-on break-down in an instant.

Last Sunday night, Masterpiece began broadcasting Oliver Twist, and it is, I am sad to say, awful.  Scenes important in the book are excised, others not in the book are invented, as is much dialog.  The characters do not seem at all like what I pictured from reading the novel.  Worst of all is the ridiculously anachronistic soundtrack.  There are screaming electric guitars.  I suppose you could point out that almost every movie set before the eighteenth century has a soundtrack that is not, shall we say, historically informed.  But Oliver Twist is set smack in the middle of the Romantic era, and it would have been so much less distracting to use acurate music.

So, I am a bit worried for what the rest of this season has in store.  Meanwhile, note to self:  if you ever become penniless, chose to live in the charming Devonshire countryside instead of putrid London.

Filed under: Literature and Books, Television on February 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »

As I wrote back in December, the February deadline for transition to exclusively digital TV signals is near.  Or it was, until this afternoon when the stupid house of representatives passed a bill to extend analog broadcasts through June.  On the News Hour just now I saw stupid Maxine Waters up there saying something to the effect that, “people are going to be so confused when their TVs stop working”.  Probably.  But guess what?  That’s the only thing that’s going to prompt some people to get the converter they need.  Pushing back this transition is only going to make things worse.  For a year now, stations have been running PSAs telling people the switch was in February.  TV stations had been planning to stop broadcasting, and now they’re going to have to keep running an extra tower for the tiny population (something like six million people) not yet ready.

This is such a stupid idea.  Mark my words: come June, the same people who are not ready today for the digital switch will still not be ready.  Only having their TVs go blank will motivate them.

Filed under: Current Events, Television on February 4th, 2009 | 1 Comment »