If You Have to Ask, You Can't Afford It

(Photo from charity buzz)

From 2009 to 2016 I was a regular viewer of Royal Pains, USA channel's romantic dramedy about a startup concierge medical practice in the Hamptons. The show had the difficult-to-diagnose conditions that doctor shows usually have and multi-season story arcs. The millionaire inhabitants of the Hamptons were sometimes gently mocked, but there were no pure villains. When the series wrapped, the practice had become successful, and all the major characters had resolved their conflicts.

Now there are several concierge doctors in the Hamptons, and one even attributes the founding of his business to the TV show.

Along with other areas with surging centimillionaire and billionaire populations such as South Florida, the Bay Area, New York City and Los Angeles, the East End of Long Island is teeming with concierge doctors who treat patients swiftly (usually), discreetly (hopefully) and expensively (always). These doctors charge a membership fee anywhere from a few thousand dollars to six figures a year, with one-off house calls on top of that often starting around $1,000. These doctors do not typically accept insurance.

“Money is not an obstacle,” Rashid said. “Not only can concierge medicine provide fast service, it also provides advanced medicine.” Rashid, a family physician who trained in Miami and New York and has worked in the Hamptons for 15 years, opened a branch of her company in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2021 for their snowbird clients.

The Hamptons concierge-medicine boom started in 2020, when doctors saw an opportunity to test and treat the affluent community working remotely from their beach houses. Nationwide chain Sollis Health, which focuses on emergency medicine, started a center among the tony horse farms of Water Mill in 2021. Other options include Casa Health, White Glove Medicine and individual practitioners including Dr. Magdalena Swierczewski, M.D., and Dr. James Giugliano, D.O.

Dr. Golberg treats a couple aboard their yacht

Many of these doctors bill themselves as one-stop shops for all family medicine needs. Some do cosmetic services, several specialize in increasingly popular antiaging and integrative-health services, while others rush over to White Parties in the wee hours when things go awry. All of them know their way around Lyme disease and addiction issues.

[Dr. Alexander] Golberg had the idea to begin practicing concierge medicine in the Hamptons after watching “Royal Pains,” a television show that ran from 2009 to 2016 about a doctor who does just that. An entrepreneurial type, Golberg immigrated from Russia in 1989 and worked at his cousin-in-law’s cubic zirconia business after medical school. He has an M.D. from St. Petersburg Medical Academy and a D.O. from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, and is board-certified in family, osteopathic, antiaging and regenerative medicine.

Patients get instant, personalized service in exchange for paying annual six-figure fees, and their clients are happy to pay it,

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.

I'll Have Some News With Those Jokes

Tyrus gesticulates

On the eve of an election which is again the-most-important-election-in-my-lifetime I'm tuning out all the reporting on the polls. Predictions range from a late break toward Harris to a clear-cut Trump victory. The most common poll result seems to be a statistical tie.

This week I've been watching Gutfield, Fox's late-night humor show. Tonight there was this nugget.

George "Tyrus" Murdoch: You are from the mean streets of Northern California.

Greg Gutfield: San Mateo.

Tyrus: You didn't play.

Gutfield: I cut my teeth at the Hillsdale Mall.

Tonight I learned that Greg Gutfield, like Tom Brady, Kris Kristofferson, and Merv Griffin, is another San Mateo kid who moved away and hit it big.

It's a pleasant surprise when you go to be entertained and pick up some knowledge in the process.

Debate Surprise

(Variety photo)

I fell asleep before the debate started. (I'm ten years younger than President Biden and start fading in the early evening, so I give him credit--and President Trump, 78, too--for putting themselves out there at 9 p.m. Eastern.)

Waking after the debate, I flipped between MSNBC, Fox, and CNN expecting to get the usual commentary from partisans about how their candidate won. For the first time in memory there was very little spin from one side, which acknowledged that their candidate did poorly.

Instead we were treated to some Democrats calling for President Biden to drop out of the race. The biggest obstacle is the President himself.

President Biden’s halting performance against Donald Trump left the Democratic Party in turmoil, with allies ranging from lawmakers to wealthy donors discussing Friday whether the 81-year-old should remain on the ticket even as a defiant Biden pressed on with his re-election campaign.

The 90-minute debate, watched by tens of millions of Americans, put Biden’s age, his biggest political vulnerability, on display like no other moment in his presidency. He stumbled over words, stammered through answers and trailed off without finishing sentences, forcing Democrats to publicly confront an issue that many had largely dismissed and some had fretted over privately.

Biden has no plans to drop out of the race, according to one of his senior advisers, and the president remains committed to the planned September debate with Trump. He returned to the campaign trail Friday, acknowledging his age but insisting he remained the right man to take on Trump....

Biden would need to step aside from the race in order for Democrats to replace him, given that he controls most of the party’s delegates headed into their August convention.

I had thought that the biggest pre-convention news was going to be on the Republican side, with former President Trump's hush-money sentencing on July 11th and the designation of his running mate. To almost everyone's surprise the Democratic convention could well be more entertaining.

Not Much to be Proud of

Tua's Facebook photo

I did have a rooting interest in the Chiefs-Dolphins game this Saturday (Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was born in Hawaii, my home state), but not enough to subscribe to the Peacock channel, which had exclusive rights to the game.

My initial take was that the NFL was especially dumb in removing the game from "free" national television, since Taylor Swift's attendance at Chiefs games had been attracting millions of non-football viewers who were hoping to catch a glimpse of her. However, the money Peacock offered was too tempting: [bold added]

The Saturday night contest between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs will only be on Peacock, unless the viewer lives in the local television markets of the respective teams (the game will air free). For everyone else across the country, a Peacock subscription plans start at $5.99 per month...

So why is this game exclusively on a streaming service? NBC Universal paid the NFL $110 million last year for rights to carry a wild card game on Peacock -- a one-year deal.

Our household already subscribes to five streaming services that we don't fully utilize, and Chiefs-Dolphins couldn't justify adding a sixth. BTW, the game itself wasn't suspenseful or well-played; the Chiefs won 26-7 under extremely frigid conditions.

As for Taylor Swift, she was breaking the internet in her custom-made jacket by Kristin Juszczyk, wife of 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk.

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Happy Days of Yore

Alumni Ron Howard (Richie Cunningham) and
Henry Winkler (the Fonz) - WSJ photo

WSJ editorialist Matthew Hennessey has a problem with pre-teen TV: [bold added]

like most parents, my wife and I are always on the hunt for “safe” shows for our kids to watch. Tween programming is as vapid as ever, but these days it comes with a distinct woke overlay. Pronoun preaching and climate propaganda have replaced slapstick and potty humor. None of that works for us.

His solution? "Happy Days," currently found on Amazon Prime. Mr. Hennessey's son especially likes the Fonz.

“Happy Days” was a half-hour situation comedy on ABC from 1974-84. Created by Garry Marshall, the show was set in Milwaukee and revolved around the middle-class Cunningham family, Howard and Marion and their children Richie and Joanie. Minor characters, Potsie and Ralph Malph, palled around at Arnold’s Diner, but the star was the Fonz...

It’s impossible to overstate the cultural importance of the Fonz in his time. He was the biggest thing on TV, which was the biggest thing in America...in leather jacket and tight jeans he was as cool as they come. The Fonz was a light caricature of the greaser archetype—slick, tough, a chick magnet. He rode a motorcycle and spoke in an incongruous Brooklynese (the mid-’70s were the height of the “Italian Stallion” phase of American masculinity). His cartoonish catchphrases—“Whoa!” “Sit on it!”—were ubiquitous.

"Happy Days" (1974-84) for me fell in that too-busy-to-watch-TV period after graduation but before kids. I did tune in occasionally to spinoffs Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy, notable for the off-script improvisation by Robin Williams, as well as the H-D mother ship, but none of it was must-see programming worthy of being recorded on the new VCR.

"Happy Days" appears to be enjoying a revival. It didn't jump the shark after all.

Collateral Benefits

At least they got rid of the termites.

When fire ravages a house, there sometimes is collateral damage to other properties. In the case of my sister-in-law, who lives across the street from a burnt-out home in Kailua, there are collateral benefits.

An episode of Magnum P.I. had a scene with a burning house, and the neighbor's misfortune had a silver lining. The husk was needed by the TV show--flames to be added later through special effects--and Magnum will help defray some of her out-of-pocket costs for the rebuild.

A lot of work for a hole in the ground.

The collateral benefits? A plot point had a character burying something nearby, so my sister-in-law was paid $2,000 to shoot the scene on her property.

The production dug the hole, filled it later, and re-sodded the surface in addition to clearing some weeds. My brother-in-law says the area looks better than before.

Although Magnum has been cancelled by NBC, their house is now frozen in time as long as Magnum P.I. reruns are shown.

Related: another relative's house was used regularly in Hawaii Five-0. 

"A Catastrophic Act of Cultural Destruction"

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021): my last DVD rental?

Spider-Man: No Way Home is the current DVD I'm renting through Netflix. It may be my last, because Netflix announced it will terminate its DVD business on September 29th (discs can still be returned after that date).

Paying $9.99 per month, I haven't been an efficient user of the rental service. Sometimes the disc sits in the player for a month before viewing, or worse, it's returned because I just didn't care to watch it after all.

But I still maintain the DVD plan, because it's convenient to pay one provider instead of hunting for which streaming service is carrying the movie I want to watch. Also, many older movies cannot be found on any streaming plan:

Netflix’s recent announcement that it will discontinue its physical DVD distribution business later this year is a catastrophic act of cultural destruction...

In 2018 the film-data researcher Stephen Follows tracked the availability of the 100 top-grossing films from 1970 to 2017. Those released in the most recent decade were available via streaming, digital renting or purchase. As Mr. Follows worked back in time, however, movies became hard to find commercially. Just half of top-grossing films from the early 1970s could be streamed. Older, less profitable, experimental and independent works hardly streamed at all.

If it’s worth seeing, you may think, the magic of the marketplace will bring it to Hulu or Amazon Prime. This month the Washington Post’s Ty Burr reminds us of some movies we can’t stream: “Cocoon” (1985), directed by Ron Howard, “Short Cuts” (1993) by Robert Altman, “New York, New York” (1977) by Martin Scorsese, “Henry & June” (1990) by Philip Kaufman and “Silkwood” (1983) by Mike Nichols.

Of the 23,000-plus movies released in the U.S. since 1899, streaming services offer only 7,300—and that includes foreign titles. If a film happens to be streaming somewhere, odds are it’s on a platform you don’t pay for. The average American household subscribes to four streaming services out of the many available.

Another point in favor of DVD's: they are impervious to sneak-editing of their content. Steven Spielberg inveighed against the recent tendency to edit books and movies to make them conform to today's morality:

Spielberg acknowledged that the digital modifications [turning police guns into walkie-talkies] he made to the 20th anniversary edition of E.T. were "a mistake. I never should have done that. E.T. is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily, or being forced to peer through."

The director insisted that "All our movies are a kind of a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like, and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there."

If there arises a business that rents a fairly complete library of un-bowdlerized DVD's, I would be a customer.

"Did We Win?"

Three days after he suffered a cardiac arrest on national television Damar Hamlin regained consciousness:

“Did we win?” he asked his bedside nurse.

Hamlin is now awake and appears to be neurologically intact, his physicians said, as they detailed his condition at a news conference for the first time after Hamlin collapsed and suffered cardiac arrest during Monday’s game. The doctors from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center spoke cautiously, noting that he remains critically ill, and is on a ventilator as his lungs continue to heal...

Hamlin continues to undergo intensive care and receive assistance for breathing. “We would like to see him continue to improve, to be completely breathing on his own, and then to be ready to be discharged from the hospital,” [Dr. Timothy] Pritts said. “We really want to get him home.”

Players, coaches, the thousands affiliated with NFL teams, and millions of fans had their priorities upended when the Buffalo Bills safety collapsed on the field. Everyone familiar with the game had seen on-field injuries, some severe, but never had anyone witnessed a player on the edge of losing his life.

The minds of the Bills and Cincinnati Bengals were no longer on playing football Monday night, and the game was suspended. The news, both print and electronic, have since been filled with discussions about the rewards and health risks of football, whether the Bills and Bengals should continue their contest, and the implications for the locations of playoff games leading to the Super Bowl under either scenario.

Regardless of their position on these topics, all have stated that the most important consideration was the health and well-being of Damar Hamlin and his family.

His first comment was therefore both amusing and poignant. When someone undergoes a life-altering experience, one usually resets priorities while the rest of society goes on as usual. "Did we win?" reminded us how Damar changed everyone's perspective about football, while the catalyst himself remained in the world that existed the second before he went down.

Muddled TV Dialogue: More Solutions

The sound customization menu (right) on our Sony Bravia

As we noted last month, television viewers who are not hearing-impaired are turning on closed-captioning:

But your TV is just one of the culprits. The rest of the problem lies within virtually every other step of the audio process, from a studio’s production choices to the device used to watch the content.

In addition to closed captioning and turning up the volume on all sound, newer TVs can amplify speech. On the Sony purchased this year I adjusted the "Voice zoom" from 0 to 4 (picture top).

Go to Settings > Display & Sound > Sound > Sound mode > Dialogue. On the company’s Bravia TVs, there is also Voice Zoom, which lets you adjust how much you would like the dialogue to stand out. Open Settings > Display & Sound > Sound > Sound customization > Voice Zoom.

The WSJ lists buying headphones, investing in speakers, and/or the aforementioned boosting dialogue feature as solutions to unclear speech. As in many aspects of life, tech caused the problem and is providing the solution.

Market Segmentation: Too Far?

Candace Cameron Bure will leave Hallmark
to make movies for Great American Family.

For over five years I've been watching Hallmark movies. The plots lack in suspense. Most conflicts are resolved happily, there are no really bad guys except in the murder-mystery movies, and love always wins over career opportunities and peripatetic inclinations.

To be perfectly honest, I often run the Hallmark Channel as a form of background music when I'm doing something else, like composing this blog post.

Hallmark movies are rife with religious values, e.g., lead characters are always volunteering to help poor orphans, but there are very few explicitly Christian movies on the channel. Church scenes are limited to weddings and funerals, and the words "God," "Jesus," or "Lord" are absent from scripts. The audience is often left to infer that characters are religious by their actions and the values they espouse.

Now some of the biggest Hallmark stars are leaving for a faith-based network: [bold added]

These days, the genre that Hallmark pioneered is everywhere, from major streaming platforms like Netflix to more niche channels like the Food Network and HGTV. While the movies may differ, most share an abiding reluctance to dwell on Christianity.

Great American Family enters the scene with the opposite point of view. With a name that conjures red-state pride and content that embraces faith, the channel is presenting itself as the choice for Christians who think Hollywood is ruining Christmas. Mrs. Bure, a former child star best known as D.J. Tanner from “Full House,” is the religious influencer who serves as its face...

The channel’s formula is what [CEO Bill] Abbott calls “soft faith,” a Christian message he said is there for viewers who are looking for it but doesn’t aim to proselytize. Great American Family also offers holiday films that follow conventional secular story lines: The New York advertising hotshot who falls in love while trying to sell the family farm, the luxury travel blogger who stumbles into romance at a bed-and-breakfast, and the like.

Your humble blogger has long had an aversion to shows that are overtly message-y. Lead characters on network shows sometimes launch into speeches against business polluters, real estate developers, racists, and -phobics who condemn others for "being different." Once the writers' agenda is revealed, then it's clear that the characters are there to serve the agenda.

I won't watch shows where the plot is subservient to ideology, even though I might agree with aspects of the ideology. I'll check out the Great American Family network, but it will be on a short leash.

The Audio Doesn't Equal the Video.

The hearing aids that I got in 2018 have been very helpful.

Every day speech with real people is comfortably decipherable--by the way, have you noticed that old people frequently mumble? that's a subject for another day--but for television I often still must turn on closed captioning. More people with normal hearing are also using the feature.

“If you have people talking or shouting during the adventure scenes, the explode-y sounds are way higher than the dialogue,” said Melanie Brooks, a 43-year-old professional musician in Boston. Catching some of the lines in her favorite fantasy and adventure TV series is hard without captions, she added.

People tend to blame their flat-screen TVs for bad sound. The tube TVs of decades past had front-facing speakers that sent audio toward you, while new, super-thin models have speakers that are behind the screen or point downward, bouncing sound away from you. But your TV is just one of the culprits.

The rest of the problem lies within virtually every other step of the audio process, from a studio’s production choices to the device used to watch the content, said Richard Nevens, senior director of audio-hardware product management at Avid Technology, which specializes in audio- and video-editing tools.

Movie sound technology has outstripped the capabilities of the speakers on home devices, including TV's.

It's a relief that I don't have to upgrade my hearing equipment.

Meanwhile, I'll be setting closed captioning to "on."

Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher

Ancient history: Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher,
Tom Bosley's Sheriff Amos Tupper, and a pay telephone.

Last month I began watching Murder, She Wrote reruns on the Hallmark Mysteries Channel. The popular series ran from 1984 to 1996, and I managed to catch many of the episodes the first time around because it followed the Sunday NFL game on CBS.

I have always been a fan of the whodunit. Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher was squarely in the tradition of the amateur sleuth--Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple--who through keen observation, deductive reasoning, and photographic memory bested the professionals.

When Murder, She Wrote began, Jessica Fletcher was conceived as an unassuming Miss Marple who was ignored by police and criminals alike. As the series progressed, Jessica grew in fictional stature by writing numerous mystery best sellers and solving cases in cities toured by the increasingly famous author.

It's not an exaggeration to say that Jessica Fletcher helped to implant in the consciousness of late 20th-century America the idea that an older woman with character and smarts could be successful without being rich or beautiful or riding on her husband's coattails.

Though Jessica was initially conceived as a somewhat flighty character, Lansbury said she fought to portray her as a strong, successful single woman.

“In the first place, she was shown as a rather kooky character,” she told Australia’s Studio 10 in 2018. “That’s all right up to a certain point, but I thought, ‘No, let’s make her a smart woman.’ And by the time we were finished she got back her sense of purpose as a woman, she was attractive, she had boyfriends, she had a nice wardrobe. She became much more of an everywoman rather than a kook.”

After the turn of the century characters like Jessica Fletcher became passé. Detective shows spent more time on forensic science, violent action, and soap-opera-ish season-long character arcs. Those series are entertaining and stored on the videorecorder, too, but lately Murder, She Wrote has been at the top of your humble blogger's list.

Angela Lansbury, who died this Tuesday at the age of 96, had Tony and Grammy Awards, as well as three Academy Award nominations, but she will be most remembered for her portrayal of a schoolteacher-turned-writer from Cabot Cove, Maine. R.I.P.

Pressure Cooking

The winner, flanked by her proud grandparents.

Last night was the first time I had watched MasterChef, and I did so under the urging of a finalist's grandparents, who are good friends.

The three contestants all worked under tremendous pressure, not only preparing each dish from scratch within a strict one-hour limit but having to answer questions on camera while they were furiously engaged.

Our friends did a good job of keeping the outcome to themselves for nearly a year, though it wasn't hard to guess from their reminders to watch the show.

When their grandaughter Dara Yu emerged victorious, it was a redemptive moment for a young woman who as a teenager lost her father tragically.

Life has ups and downs, and at the tender age of 20 (when filmed) Dara already has had more than the rest of us.

I Went to a Political Rally and a Game Broke Out

Brianna Turner (left) - WSJ photo

Politically active athletes have given up boycotts in favor of preaching their message when they visit states whose politics they abhor: [bold added]

State boycotts have quietly faded from popularity as a tactic, say activists, including those who successfully got NCAA and NBA events yanked from North Carolina six years ago over a law requiring people to use the public-facility bathroom corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates.

These days, activists have pivoted to accepting that such events will go ahead—while pressuring athletes and organizers to use the money and attention generated to support their cause. It’s a demand that could end up being even more challenging for teams and leagues.

As the abortion fight shifts to the states following last week’s Supreme Court ruling, that’s the approach that politically minded athletes are taking too.

For example, Brianna Turner, a power forward for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, said that, rather than declining to play in areas with abortion restrictions, she wants to use her presence to promote her point of view.

Blocking events “is a tactic, but I think that maybe even better would be playing in the games and wearing shirts on the sidelines that say, like, ‘pro-abortion’ or ‘abortion rights are human rights,’” she said. Other ideas, she said, included using media availability around games to only talk about the issue.

I suspect that even some abortion-rights supporters just want to enjoy a game with their kids without being forced to explain what the rape-and-incest exception means.

We've already seen what excessive wokeness does to movie box office and TV ratings. If professional sports leagues want to turn off some of their audience, it's their right, so they should go for it.

The Miasma of Emotion

The priest mused about anger during the entire sermon.

Angry people were all over television raging about Supreme Court decisions, House committee hearings, war in Ukraine, social justice, etc. etc. He wouldn't condemn anger itself. In some cases it's justified, he said; it was a motivation to action. But he's found that if he holds on to anger long it makes him less effective.

For the past decade I've stayed away from television political channels, even those which favor my politics. The "debates" always favor one side of the issue, and opposing speakers very rarely present the strongest arguments for the other side.

But the worst thing about TV political channels is that they personalize issues by running and re-running video clips about injustices done to individuals.

(Image, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

If a network wants to strengthen immigration enforcement, it shows innocents who have been killed by illegal immigrants. If a channel wants to promote abortion rights, it features first-hand accounts of women who suffered horrifically before 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade. We can't help but be angry at people who directly or even indirectly result in others' suffering.

That's why I obtain news that has a political dimension from printed media and website articles. There's a better chance that some rational thought will poke through the miasma of emotion.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.--------Galatians 5:19-21

The Best Weekend of Football Ever

Tetraptych of the four winning quarterbacks: Burrow, Bengals;
Mahomes, Chiefs; Garoppolo, 49ers; Stafford, Rams (WSJ photo)

Fans of professional football for over 50 years, we've always made a point of tuning into the Divisional Playoffs, four weekend games which pit the eight teams left in the Super Bowl tournament. We hope for one, maybe two exciting games; usually there are a number of stinkers that are decided by halftime.

Last weekend each game was exciting enough to have been the highlight of the weekend in past years.

the 2022 version of the divisional round may be the best ever.

Two No. 1 seeds were taken out in the divisional round, the first time that's happened since 2010. All four teams that won earned the victory in walk-off fashion.

Evan McPherson hit a game-winning 52-yard field goal to give the No. 4 Cincinnati Bengals a 19-16 win over the top-seeded Tennessee Titans.

Robbie Gould hit a game-winning 45-yard field goal to give the No. 6 San Francisco 49ers a 13-10 win over the top-seeded Green Bay Packers.

Matt Gay hit the winning 30-yard field as the Los Angeles Rams knocked off the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Patrick Mahomes connected with Travis Kelce on an eight-yard touchdown pass to give the Kansas City Chiefs an overtime victory over the Buffalo Bills.

The National Football League couldn't have written the script any better. The first game, Cincinnati's upset win over Tennessee that was decided by a last-second field goal, was exciting, but each succeeding game was even more thrilling as the stars elevated their play. IMHO, the games were "won," not "lost."

a football weekend like this past one, a four-contest, do-or-die playoff buffet in which the first game was totally wild, the second game was utterly wilder, the third game was straight-up bonkersville, and I really don’t have the term to describe the fourth game, because the English language has yet to come up with a sufficient word to precisely describe its final minutes of madness...

It was some 24 hours, starting with Cincinnati winning a football game they really had no business winning, to San Francisco winning a wintry game they had no business winning, to the Los Angeles Rams winning a game they did their best to gift wrap and leave on the doorstep for Tampa Bay, to a relentless jaw-dropper between Kansas City and Buffalo in which the lead flipped back and forth in the closing seconds of regulation.

Another reason this was a great weekend for football: for the first time in 5-7 years the focus has been on the games and not on fundamental threats to its popularity. Rule changes and improvements to safety equipment have halted, at least temporarily, the furor over CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). A combination of acceding to some of the players' demands and a general lowering of the political temperature has pushed the flag-kneeling controversy to the background. Vaccinations and greater knowledge of the disease have made COVID protocols less disruptive.

Go Niners!

John Madden (1936-2021)

The 1970's was a miserable decade--runaway inflation, gas lines, Watergate, the fall of Saigon--but at least Bay Area sports fans could find solace in their Oakland teams.

Charles Finley moved the Athletics from Kansas City and won three straight World Series from 1972 to 1974. Both owner and players broke the mold with "Charley O the mule, orange baseballs, mustachioed players, the designated hitter and designated runners."

The Golden State Warriors, led by Hall of Famer Rick Barry, were the surprise winner of the 1975 NBA championship. They dominated the 1975-1976 season, only to fall in the Western Conference finals to the Phoenix Suns.

Both the A's and Warriors were fan favorites--let's not talk about the mediocre 49ers and Giants, who rarely made the playoffs--but by the beginning of the 1970's football was already the most popular sport in America, and the top echelon of the National Football League included the Oakland Raiders.

Celebrating the 1977 Super Bowl Win

Led by its brilliant owner Al Davis, the Raiders were a team of castoffs, misfits, and rejects. John Madden, who died yesterday, molded this unconventional roster into a championship contender and became the most successful coach in Raiders history.

Just 32 when he became the Raiders’ head coach, Madden, who quickly became known for his sideline outbursts and unruly hair, led his team to the playoffs eight times in 10 seasons and compiled a .759 winning percentage (103-32-7) that still ranks as the highest of any coach with at least 100 victories.

Every January, while it was cold and raining outside, we could count on Raider football to entertain us on weekends.

During the '70's the Raiders had to go up against a historically great dynasty, the 4-time-champion Pittsburgh Steelers, as well as the Miami Dolphins, who in 1972 became and still are the only undefeated team in NFL history. Given the competition, John Madden's record was remarkable.

Tom Landry

Prowling the sidelines with his portly frame and expansive gestures, John Madden was the opposite of Tom Landry, the buttoned-down coach of the "America's team" Cowboys.

Madden's game-planning and Hall-of-Fame players made Raiders-Steelers must-see TV. The playoff game between the teams in December, 1972, was decided by the Immaculate Reception, perhaps the most famous play in NFL history. I remember watching that game on a tiny low-res TV screen in Hawaii and thought that Terry Bradshaw's 4th-quarter 4th-down pass was knocked down and the Raiders had won. Then the fuzzy TV showed a Steeler (Franco Harris) racing toward the end zone for a Steeler touchdown and victory.

Huh? What just happened? Similar to the 1969 moon landing, you could hardly see it and you couldn't replay it.

We were sad to see John Madden retire from coaching in 1978, but even in those days it was understood that he was headed for a stress-induced heart attack if he continued.

Again, much to everyone's surprise, he became the most popular TV football analyst of all time and put his name on one of the most popular sports videogames of all time.

I don't know when it was that politicians sought to become a person "you would like to have a beer with," but they should just say "I want to be like John Madden." R.I.P., coach.

Turn Off, (Don't) Tune In, Drop Out, and Live Longer

For the past five years I've achieved a measure of peace by not tuning in to television news, which--only a slight exaggeration--pushes outrage 24/7. (I also include late night comedy, which has substituted putdowns of half the country for lighthearted laughs about the human condition.)

Internet news is toxic in a different way. Researchers have established that popular sites like Tik Tok and Facebook quickly figure out the subjects and opinions that individual users like to read about and feed them more of the same. Anger is often the by-product.

Within our cocoons it's easy to become outraged at the injustices done to "our" side by the ignorant and evil people on the other.

Do yourself a favor. Use the off switch and add years to your life.

The Days of Our Youth

My high school class formed a Facebook group in preparation for the 50th reunion last summer, which, as might be expected, was cancelled. The organizational effort was not totally wasted, however, because now there was a message board that we used to catch up with each other, mourn classmates who had passed on, and wax nostalgic about high-school and earlier years (those who attended from kindergarten to 12th grade are members of the "13 Plus" club).

The orchestra was required to play "Pomp and Circumstance" every June, so I attended three graduations before it was our turn to march in.

The class ahead of ours chose as their song Try to Remember from the off-Broadway musical the Fantasticks. TTR is a sentimental number about reflecting back on a youth that is gone too quickly. Emotions were heartfelt; the war was raging, they were about to register for the draft, half the class was leaving the Islands, and many would never see each other again.

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

The original Fantasticks cast member who sang Try to Remember is Jerry Orbach (1935-2004), whom I only knew as an actor in the hit series Murder She Wrote and Law & Order. Here he is in 1982, 22 years after he introduced it on the stage.