Bay Area: Last Stop?

(Image from first for women)

I bought Steve Martin's album A Wild and Crazy Guy in 1978 and found this bit to be hilarious:

You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. “Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?”

First.. get a million dollars.

Now.. you say, “Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, ‘You.. have never paid taxes’?” Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: “I forgot!”

The transcript does not do justice to his delivery, which was replete with pregnant pauses, shrugged shoulders, and goofy expressions. Plus, the two-part answer to "how can I be a millionaire and pay no taxes?" that began with "first get a million dollars" struck me as funny, and if you don't agree, dear reader, well, we laugh at different things.

I thought of Steve Martin's routine when I came across an article in the Chronicle about why many of us choose to live out our final years here: How to financially prepare to spend the rest of your life in the Bay Area . Certainly the drawbacks of staying in the Bay Area--or California in general--have been well publicized:

there’s plenty of talk about the bad. You don’t have to look far on the internet to find people blasting California for its high taxes, housing costs and homelessness. California has the top marginal state individual income tax rate at 13.3%, according to the Tax Foundation.

"But that’s not the whole story."

[Estate planning, trust and probate law attorney James] Cunningham broke down the hidden benefits in a post on his firm’s website titled “Why Retiring in California May Actually Be a Smart Idea.” For instance, though marginal rates are high, you’ll pay a lot less on your presumably diminished retirement income compared to some states with flat tax rates. California is one of the states that doesn’t tax Social Security benefits, and doesn’t tax capital gains when a spouse dies. And you’ll dearly miss that Prop. 13 property tax cap if you move somewhere like Texas.

Bay Area retired acquaintances have told me that the primary factor that caused them to stay or leave was the state of their finances. Those who have a paid-up house and enough savings and retirement income to live on (daunting prerequisites, like "first get a million dollars") consider other factors, such as where their children and friends live, the quality of medical care, and, last but far from least, the temperate weather all year long.

If I had to bet, the Bay Area is our last stop, but circumstances can easily change.

Summer, winter, or fall the Foster City weather is nearly the same.

Colbert Cancellation: It's Just Business

Stephen Colbert (Kowalchyk/CBS/WSJ)

CBS has cancelled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," which will air until May, 2026.

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was profitable as recently as a few years ago.

Now, it loses about $40 million a year, according to a person familiar with its budget. On Thursday, CBS pulled the plug on the show and an entire franchise launched in 1993, making it the biggest casualty yet among late-night talk shows contending with cord-cutting, changing tastes among younger viewers and declining ad revenue.

The budget for the show, filmed in New York City’s Ed Sullivan Theater, includes a live band, a staff the host said numbered 200 people, and an annual salary of $20 million for Colbert, according to a person familiar with the show’s operations.

That hefty cost of production, a withering business model and a parent company under pressure struck fatal blows. The TV mainstay will go dark next May.

Liberal observers, for example the Writers Guild of America, are claiming CBS' motives are political, i.e. “to curry favor with the Trump Administration.” They could well be partially right, although IMHO if the "Late Show" were making, not losing, $40 million a year CBS would have carried it indefinitely.

Even if CBS believed Stephen Colbert was a political but profitable hot potato, it would have been able to find a buyer for the show and extract value from the franchise. Not understanding this basic principle of how business works demonstrates the financial illiteracy of the chattering well-educated classes.

Comedy: is the Dam Breaking?

I stopped watching late-night comedy in 2009.

During the first decade (the "oughts") of the 21st century the jokes became more political and vicious, almost exclusively against Republicans and the Bush Administration. (Gone were the gentle chidings of Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, who focused on the personal foibles of politicians of all stripes.) Indeed, some of the fare was funny, but my laughter died down after the same jokes were told every weeknight for eight years.

In 2008 Barack Obama and the Democrats won landslide victories. They didn't need to compromise with Republicans on anything.

In 2009 I thought we'd start hearing jokes about the all-powerful Democrats, as comedians would follow the liberal mantra of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Instead, a year after Democrats won the election

David Letterman, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart still choose to joke about Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney's miscues but largely ignore the rich lode of material produced daily by this Administration.

The comics and their writers did their part by refraining to criticize President Obama for eight years, attacking Donald Trump throughout his Presidency, then laying off Joe Biden for three years as he deteriorated visibly after his election. In early 2024 they were still holding the line.

A new study from the Media Research Center found that 81% of all political jokes told on major late-night comedy shows in 2023 targeted conservatives.

The media watchdog analyzed each of the 9,518 political jokes told between six major daily late-night shows from January 3 through December 22, 2023, and found that 7,729 of them took aim at “someone or something on the right side of the political spectrum.”

The shows analyzed were ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show with James Corden” (until its cancelation in April).

After Joe Biden made his senility obvious at the June 27th Presidential debate, there is no agreed-upon Democratic narrative to protect. Comedians can now direct their cruelties against Democrats (except for Kamala Harris, who may well become the party's nominee ).

Jon Stewart's monologue was something that I've been waiting for over 20 years.

Groundhog Day, 2023

Today is Groundhog Day, when Phil, the groundhog from Punxsutawney, PA, predicts the weather for the next six weeks (cold if he sees his shadow, warm if he does not, and he did see his shadow.)

Today also celebrates the 30th anniversary of the movie, released on February 4, 1993. Groundhog Day was well-received when it came out and has grown in esteem to the extent that it is now considered to be one of the top films of all time. At its center is a vision of the meaning of life, but it is enclosed in a comedic wrapping that can be enjoyed on its own merits. As I wrote seven years ago:

Groundhog Day was a quirky custom in an out-of-the-way town--it didn't rise in the popular consciousness until the 1993 film.

I came across the movie on HBO in 1996. At first glance it was a cleverly written comedy about a jaded, world-weary weatherman who mysteriously must re-live Groundhog Day over and over again.

Bill Murray's character, Phil Connors, is trapped. Even when he despairingly "kills" himself he wakes up the next morning in the same hotel bed to the strains of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" on the clock-radio.

Phil-the-human cannot escape, yet in a sense he is totally free. He can commit any number of sins without consequence because he will have a fresh start tomorrow. No one but he remembers what he did.

Repeated viewings struck a chord. The movie plumbed deep waters. And I'm not alone in that realization.

In the years since its release the film has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese Falun Gong movement. Meanwhile, the Internet brims with weighty philosophical treatises on the deep Platonist, Aristotelian, and existentialist themes providing the skin and bones beneath the film’s clown makeup.

theology professor Michael P. Foley wrote that Groundhog Day is “a stunning allegory of moral, intellectual, and even religious excellence in the face of postmodern decay, a sort of Christian-Aristotelian Pilgrim’s Progress for those lost in the contemporary cosmos.”

The movie ends on a hopeful note. Phil makes positive changes of his own free will, without expectations of a reward. Only then is he released from the prison of endless repetition.

Part of the genius of Groundhog Day, the movie, is that it doesn't pummel you with philosophy. It invites you to think, but if you just want to laugh, that's ok, too. As Jonah Goldberg observes,

We’re talking about the movie in which Bill Murray tells a big rat sitting on his lap, “Don’t drive angry,”

Further musings in 2023 about Phil Connors' journey and our own:

In the film — written by Danny Rubin, a Zen Buddhist, according to Ramis’ DVD commentary of the film — Phil reincarnates each day, but he also transforms his behavior over “time.” He takes self-centered advantage of his unique predicament — robbing bank trucks, stuffing his face with angel food cake, tricking a woman into bed — but eventually perfects the day with creative self-improvement tasks and compassionately helping others. Once he becomes the best possible version of Phil Connors, he is released from his temporal prison, while simultaneously winning the love of his virtuous producer, Rita...

But something does change every day, even if it’s imperceptible. It’s ourselves. And we can choose how this day will unfold, and how we will slowly evolve. There might even be a “Groundhog Day”-inspired resolution: memorizing French poetry, playing the piano, figuring out how to help others more often. Like Phil, we can utilize creativity and compassion to change a glass-is-half-empty paradigm, to half full. The pursuit of meaning is itself meaningful. And today, as well as everyday, can be your first day of spring.

Wow, that's heavy! But putting it in perspective, Groundhog Day is also just about a big rat.

Seven Dirty Words -- In Retrospect Not So Restrictive

George Carlin (Reuters photo)

This week marks the 50th anniversary of George Carlin's “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television," which your humble blogger won't delineate here but can be quickly found with an Internet search.

Knowing the culture of 1972, one can easily guess at a dozen that could be on the list---George Carlin's seven will be a subset--and all refer to sex or excretory functions whose utterance horrified polite society. You still shouldn't say any of them in church, but they are increasingly used in musical lyrics and entertainment.

The bluenose old ladies who once dictated the rules of language have been supplanted by the latter-day Red Guards pouring out of our colleges to police what can't be said (e.g., "all lives matter") and what one must say (e.g., "black lives matter") to avoid shunning.

Maybe Carlin’s gift to the world wasn’t identifying the hypocrisy of having words you can’t say on TV but pointing out that shutting down words or ideas or thoughts is destructive to a free society. He’d probably be aghast at the state of social-media censorship today. If the price of our freedom is that someone may take offense, Carlin surely would think that’s worth the cost. I’d agree.

Thanks to censorship and technology, the public airwaves have been greatly diminished. Car radio moved to SiriusXM and Spotify. Television moved to cable and satellite and Blu-ray. Now it is all streaming and anything goes. I still think youth need to be protected, but good luck with that. Eight-year-olds with smartphones can hear the forbidden words daily. I laugh at Netflix’s kid-magnet warnings: “Gore, Language, Smoking.” Even Disney isn’t as family-friendly as it used to be.

Carlin died in 2008, as cancel culture and campus safe spaces for the anxious were beginning to become widespread. Today, there is a long list of things you can’t say, including “all lives matter” and “chief” and “birth mother” and even “master bedroom.” Goodbye discussion and thought. Then add sports-team names and wrong pronouns on playgrounds and shoot, we miss you, George Carlin.

After seeing how the new Puritanism works, a world where George Carlin can't say seven dirty words doesn't seem as restrictive.

Closer to the Funny Bone

(Deadline image)

Further proving the Streisand effect (when Barbra Streisand tried to suppress a photo of her Malibu mansion, her action just called more attention to it), the protests surrounding Dave Chappelle's comedy special on Netflix caused me to check it out.

Comedy is very subjective--what one person finds uproarious can elicit alarm, disdain, or indifference in another.

To your humble blogger standup comedy is about the only free-speech zone left in America; people are free to laugh at thoughts that could not be expressed anywhere else. And yes, I do find some humor offensive, especially when targeted at my race, faith, or sex (but not when it's clever, another subjective measure), but that's the price we pay so that we can listen to humor that offends others, a kind of mutually assured suspension of civility.

So I watched The Closer and found most of it humorous. Let me caution at the outset that many black comedians pepper their monologues with the "n" word, the "b" word, and sexual and scatological references that most people have automatically suppressed from their speech.

David Chappelle is no exception, and it took a minute or two for this listener to become desensitized. He was playing to a mainly black live audience, who didn't mind that a black speaker was using the "n" word. After a while I realized that he was calling every guy in his stories, regardless of race, a n*****, and every woman was a b****.

In the best comedic tradition he brought up patterns and contradictions in the way we think. Because liberal and progressive values are dominant, he had riches to choose from.

Just one example: people are angered, or at least bemused, by blackfaced whites pretending to be black, but why aren't people allowed to have a similar negative reaction to men pretending to be women? They aren't real women, a declaration received to much applause.

Of course, we know that one can have a serious discussion about the differences between the two situations, but comedy is built upon often-unfair juxtapositions. Once the thought is expressed, the laugh is generated, and it's off to the next quick take. Yes, it's unfair, just like linking anti-vaxxers with anti-abortionists (so now you want to control your own body?). Tough, conservatives have had to sit there and listen to these quick takes for 20 years on at least five nightly shows, and the oft-heard response is they shouldn't be offended because it's just comedy.

Comedians often close their act on a serious note. Dave Chappelle spoke of a transgender comedian whom he befriended. She rose to his defense when he provoked "T" activists, who turned on her. She committed suicide shortly thereafter, though Dave Chappelle was careful not to attribute the death to the braying Twitter mob.

My standup favorites are old-timers Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Seinfeld, and Dana Carvey. In terms of funniness I place David Chappelle below that group but above the majority of standup comedians currently on Netflix. But IMHO the Closer is worth watching also to see where the ever-moving lines of our culture are drawn today.

The Dismal Classroom

Although my chosen profession of finance and accounting provided me with a good living and decent retirement, Ben Stein's economics teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off always punctures any pretentiousness that I may have had about my line of work:



It's pathetic that I (still) know the answers to Ben Stein's questions.

He Left Me Laughing

1988 in Sacramento, where his career took off (WSJ)"His
on-air presence in Sacramento was a lot more comedic."

I started listening to Rush Limbaugh fairly late in his career, not so much for his political views but for the entertainment.

During the George W. Bush Administration late-night comedy, including Saturday Night Live, became tiresome, vicious, and single-note, bashing the President and his supporters at every turn. Indeed, some bits were funny, but going after Republicans and their families personally while ignoring the foibles of Democrats was a sea-change from the light-hearted, even-handed joshing of Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and the younger David Letterman.

Those were the 21st century rules of comedy, I supposed, and when different politicians took over they would become the objects of mockery. However, when the Democrats swept Washington in 2008, powerless Republicans like Trent Lott and Sarah Palin continued to be the targets of scorn. Comedians refused to pick the Democrats' low-hanging fruit, such as President Obama's verbal miscues when he was off Teleprompter and Vice-President Biden's provable history of creepy behavior.

So I turned to Rush Limbaugh. His political commentary was interspersed with comic bits that you couldn't hear anywhere else; the refusal of the entertainment and media industries to "speak truth to power" when their guys were in charge only made him more popular.

Rush Limbaugh has been recognized by supporters and detractors alike as the founding father of conservative talk-radio. He spoke insightfully about politics, but it was his skill as an entertainer that made him unique. R.I.P.

Bringing the Condition Home

Walking in someone else's shoes even for a brief period fosters empathy. And so it is that today many people, including your humble blogger, can better identify with the struggles of those with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). [bold added]

Howie Mandel has been afflicted with
ADHD and OCD since childhood.
(Psychology Today)

Life for everyone in the Bay Area right now---with the intense handwashing, fear of leaving the home and fear of causing harm to others---resembles some of the classic OCD struggles. And indeed, OCD sufferers with contamination-related compulsions are facing heightened anxiety during the pandemic.

But many others are reporting that years of therapy have made them the calmest person in their household. And the sheltering has the potential for a big positive — a turning point for a disorder that has been marked by a lack of understanding in the media and popular culture.

Jeff Bell, a KCBS radio anchor and mental health awareness advocate who documented his own OCD struggle in the 2007 memoir “Rewind, Replay, Repeat,” said he’s already seeing signs of empathy from the public, who are getting a sample-size version of the trials of an OCD patient.

Fictional characters like Sheldon Cooper of The Big, Bang Theory and Adrian Monk of Monk depicted OCD in characters whose quirks were highly irritating....at first. But as the audience grew to know them over the series' 12-year and 8-year respective runs, the disorder became recognized as integral to their characters' positive attributes. The overwhelming majority of people do not have OCD, but society's fear-filled response to COVID-19 brings the condition home.

Monk, 2002-2009, was a dramedy about a brilliant detective. Tony Shalhoub and some of the cast reprised their roles in this new YouTube short.

That's Still Funny

One of the silver linings in the coronavirus cloud ("bad cloud", as opposed to "good cloud" like Microsoft's Azure and Amazon Web Services) is that boredom and ennui have led to revisiting old videos.

Tosh Togo

The Three Stooges were a top-three favorite when my parents let this kindergartener watch on the old black-and-white during the '50's. I howled at the ridiculous physical comedy, complete with the sound effects of face-slapping, head-bashing, and eye-poking.

[Related: I also enjoyed watching the fake violence of pro wrestling on Saturday mornings and was later thrilled when Tosh Togo got the role of Oddjob in Goldfinger.]

But back to the Stooges, who had material for the adults, too. In 1940 they starred in one of the first anti-Hitler Hollywood films. You Nazty Spy! is filled with Nazi references such as "storm" troopers who wear raincoats while carrying umbrellas and "books" burning to erase gambling debts.

When arms dealers seek to install a puppet dictator, they entice wallpaper hanger Moe and his assistants Larry and Curly. Dialogue:

Paper-hanger Moe smears black
paint above his lip by accident.

Moe: What does a dictator do?

Arms manufacturer: A dictator, why he makes love to beautiful women, drinks champagne, enjoys life, and never works. He makes speeches to the people, promising them plenty, gives them nothing, then takes everything. That's a dictator!

Curly: A parasite! That's for me.

The cinematography is obsolete, but the script is not.

Okay, This is Getting Serious

In the least important story of the weekend, Starbucks gave up on its to-go-only model and closed its two stores in Foster City.

On the Starbucks app nearby stores just vanished from the map, like half the world's population in the last two Avengers movies. Disbelieving, I drove by the closest store to see for myself.

Someone who really wants a cuppa joe can go to the kiosk in Safeway or the outlets in nearby San Mateo.

Okay, this is getting serious...

Okay, Panic

Current events remind me of this scene from a 38-year-old movie:

Life Imitates Comedy (?)

Donald Trump's continued success in repelling Democrats' attempts to bring him down (25th Amendment, emoluments clause, Russian collusion, Ukraine, impeachment) and the fact that his policies have not, yet, resulted in disaster (tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks, immigration enforcement, tariffs, withdrawing from the Paris Accords and the Iran deal, talks with North Korea) have his reeling opponents imagining things, for example, that a public dispute between the President and Attorney General Barr is fake:

“Critics suggested Barr’s comments to ABC News were simply a coordinated attempt between him and Trump to defuse the outrage sparked by his Department of Justice’s botched sentencing recommendation for Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone,” declared the Huffington Post, quoting a litany of liberals...

More amusing is the liberal depiction of Mr. Trump as a Machiavelli who is manipulating everyone in secret. Usually the line is that he’s an idiot.

The WSJ references an SNL skit from 1986, in which the doddering President Reagan reveals himself to be a mastermind in private.

Donald Trump isn't really that smart, right?

California: Enjoy the Comic Circumstances

California local governments have been able to harvest significant sums from the taxi industry; permit fees have to be purchased in each city and can total $3,000 to $13,000 depending on where a cab operates.

(Chart from Rideguru)

Ride-sharing companies have severely damaged this revenue source in recent years. It had been hoped that a new California law going into effect would increase the taxes on Uber and Lyft and help taxis compete. As is too often the case, the law has unintended consequences: [bold added]

California’s new gig work law, which takes effect in January, sought to prod Uber and Lyft to turn their drivers from independent contractors into employees.

It could hit the taxi industry instead.

Taxi drivers are generally contractors. While many say they might benefit financially by making minimum wage and overtime plus benefits, they also fear their industry is so financially precarious that the additional expenses could make it collapse.

“If we weren’t struggling to stay afloat, I would probably support AB5 for taxi drivers,” Marcelo Fonseca, a longtime San Francisco driver, said of the gig-work law. But “in this current market, AB5 will probably bankrupt the taxi industry.”

Uber and Lyft plan to fight the gig-workers-are-employees law in the courts and through ballot propositions, bypassing the legislature:

Uber and Lyft don’t intend to reclassify their drivers, despite the law. They are pursuing a 2020 ballot initiative to allow independent contractor drivers to receive some benefits and minimum earnings guarantees. Uber says it will battle reclassification in court.

“The supreme irony is that these companies with their billion of dollars in venture capital can fight this off, and probably prolong that fight for a very long time, whereas the taxi industry may be subject to this on very short notice,” Gruberg said.

“If the taxi industry has to absorb employee status while Uber and Lyft get a pass because they go to the voters or drag it out in the courts for years, this could be our death knell.”

In the one-party State of California your humble blogger has grown accustomed to laws being passed and then watching the scramble to undo the unintended consequences.

We can't do anything about it, so we've learned not only to accept but enjoy the comic circumstances.

A Unique Talent

One advantage of being oblivious to pop culture in one's youth is the joy of discovery later in life. During the 1970's I only knew about Aretha Franklin through the radio.

The Blues Brothers (1980) movie was a revelation; it showcased the artistry of Aretha, James Brown, Cab Calloway, and Ray Charles at the top of their game. The Blues Brothers had action, comedy, romance, great music, and choreography. I saw it again and again during that decade and could recite every line. Aretha Franklin's "Think" was one of the highlights of the movie.

When Aretha Franklin died of pancreatic cancer today at the age of 76, the greatest names in music gave tribute. Hers was a life of triumph and tragedy, but above all unique talent. Thanks to the internet it's preserved for posterity. R.I.P.

Yes, Talk Shows Were Better Back Then

Two powerful, beautiful, funny women are completely comfortable talking about their own bodies, men, ethnicity, and work on national TV. There are no insults and no complaining, and most of the humor is self-deprecating.

The clip was made 34 years ago, but it may as well have been another century (hey, it was!).

The Challenge Will be to Keep it Funny

Roseanne's 2018 cast (eonline)

Like most subjects these days the revival of Roseanne was forced Manichean-ly (maniacally?) through the prism of whether it was pro- or anti-Trump. (Star Roseanne Barr is one of the few celebrities who had spoken favorably about the President.)

The pilot episode attracted 18.4 million viewers, which enabled ABC to win the week. As expected, there were political jokes, but unlike other heavy-handed comedies the pro-Trump Roseanne character gave as good as she got.

Two weeks later the hoopla has diminished. Viewership dropped to 13.5 million, still #1 and still considered a ratings hit (it's already been renewed for next season). The apolitical plot concerned whether Roseanne's older daughter would become a surrogate mother and earn a badly needed $50,000.

I'm glad that Roseanne isn't scripted like All in the Family, which had a usually-hilarious debate on the controversial topic of the week. The show is like All in The Family, though, in that it's centered on the lives of a white working class family whose characters struggle paycheck to paycheck. There's a laugh a minute, but pathos lurks in the background.

I suspect that the show will end up being a richly textured look at working-class America, maybe with a little politics to fire up viewers occasionally. The challenge will be to keep it funny.

God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman

One of my favorite TV shows in the Sixties was Gomer Pyle, USMC. Jim Nabors, who died Thursday at the age of 87, played the titular character, whose innocent naïveté always prevailed over the tough-as-nails Sergeant Carter.

Gomer was a recognizable kind of American hero: a good-hearted, gentle, unsophisticated sort (not unlike Forrest Gump of a later era) who encounters a harder, more cynical modern world — in this case embodied by Southern California — and helps redeem it.

“Sheldon Leonard and his co-creators astutely chose a Southern California Marine base for their hero,” Gerard Jones wrote in his 1992 history of the American sitcom, “Honey, I’m Home!”

He added: “In various episodes Gomer connected with the movie and TV industries, the music business, the surf scene, the Beverly Hills rich — all the easy symbols of modernity. Everywhere he went he left a trail of fond smiles and innocence — at least temporarily — restored.”

It was easy for kids to identify with Gomer, whose bumbling caused him to be yelled at by Sgt. Carter. Somehow Gomer always triumphed in the end, but that wasn't his only super-power. In one or two episodes per season Jim Nabors unleashed a powerful baritone that incongruously coexisted with a high-pitched (for a male) speaking voice.

After television Jim Nabors had a second career as a singer. He moved to Hawaii in 1976 and lived with Stan Cadwallader, whom he married in 2013. He kept a low profile, never speaking on controversial topics and giving generously of his time, treasure, and talents. R.I.P.

In the spirit of the season below is the 79-year-old Nabors singing "Silent Night" with the Marine Corps band in Hawaii.

Jerry Lewis, 1926-2017

In LA in 1950 (WSJ photo)

Back in the Fifties there was little cross-over between the world of children and the world of adults. There were Disney movies for kids, while grown-ups liked (or said they liked) epics like the Ten Commandments that were excruciatingly long and had way too much talking. Jerry Lewis was one of the few who could bridge the two worlds.

He understood kids. On the big screen his character said embarrassing things and acted outrageously goofy. But Jerry did it without malice, and you could tell that he had a good heart. By movie’s end he got the money and the girl, leaving much smarter foes sprawled in defeat.

Our parents and grandparents were adults who won World Wars and were trying to stave off nuclear destruction. Jerry Lewis showed that a silly kid who never grew up could triumph in a very serious world. Thanks, Jerry.

Update: athletic prowess is a characteristic of great physical comedians (Charles Chaplin, Dick Van Dyke). Jerry Lewis was no exception.

Something Memorable

Last week your humble blogger listed Kate McKinnon's SNL opening as an example of comedians' Freakoutrage over the election, but that categorization was unjustified. Her performance was inspired, though it certainly was a deviation from the sharp comedy that typically leads off the show. The subdued applause reflected the audience's confounded expectation.

Dressed in her Hillary outfit, Kate McKinnon sang excerpts from Hallelujah, one of Leonard Cohen's (d. 11/7/2016) most famous songs. As she warbled "And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah" Kate's Hillary turned into a tragic figure, her lifelong quest turned to ashes partly through her own human weakness.

Christians are instructed to say "Hallelujah (Praise the Lord-PTL)" in bad times as well as good. Hillary Clinton, the lifelong Methodist, knows this, though people with only a popcorn understanding of Christianity typically don't understand how one can PTL in the midst of tragedy. For a moment SNL cast off its clown outfit and produced something memorable.