Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Tom Shales really doesn't like "Bias." I mean the messsage (the book) , the messenger (Bernard Goldberg) and the horse they rode in on (The Wall Street Journal.) This mind-numbing ad hominum attack gets the once over from that other Goldberg.
Before the 1984 season, the commonly held maxim in TV was "Comedy is dead." Then Bill Cosby, playing Lazarus, came along sending all the programming sages scurrying. I'm reminded of this after today's announcement by the network that "family" shows are no longer in NBC's "wheelhouse."
Scott Sassa, NBC's West Coast president, had some pretty amazing quotes all of which led to the conclusion that the NBC Program Department is struggling with...well...programming . Samples:
Shows like "According to Jim" and "My Wife and Kids" on ABC, "The Bernie Mac Show" on Fox wouldn't make it on NBC - "They don't have the upscale demos that we want that would allow us to keep them on the air," Sassa sniffed. Well, maybe they aren't as upscale as say "Emeril" or the "Michael Richards Show," but at least they are still on the schedule.
"If comfort shows were important, two shows on our air – 'Providence' and 'Ed' – would be killing everybody," he said. Instead, they're doing only moderately well." Oh - that must it - it's the viewers fault.
Or maybe NBC should be looking for a Between the Coasts President.
Monday, January 07, 2002
FOOD AND FAITH Here's a note to Peggy Loar, the Executive Director of Copia, "the Napa Valley's heralded new food, wine and arts museum. It follows this amazing story in the LA Times (via Drudge):
At a time of national focus on the awful consequences of religious and civil intolerance I am puzzled and disappointed at COPIA's decision to willfully offend Catholics.
Granted I have not seen the exhibit and rely solely on the L.A. Times story for the facts, which is of course subject to all kinds of subjectivity. Maybe it's me, but I can't understand the process by which support of an artist's anger and impiety advances the celebration of food and wine.
Listen, if you want to pay to have some bozo (even an internationally recognized one) fill a coke machine with cheese of all nations and consider it art - well, that's up to you. But don't expect the rest of us not to blow milk through our nose. I know you've done your research - 19th Century caganers and all that - and I applaud your scholarship - but, respectfully, I think you miss the point. They could be authentic 12th Century Popsicle sticks and still be just as offensive. Blasphemy doesn't give a whit about authenticity.
Incidentally, I agree with you that Mr. Donohue's inclusion of Tonto into the debate was maybe a bit over the top and he, at times, can be eccentric. But his obvious point - that offending Native Americans, even allegorically, is unacceptable while nuns and the Pope are free game seems to have been lost on you. Somehow in your mind, Native Americans should be offended by...what? Being considered for inclusion in the installation? By your thought-less politically correct knee-jerk response, you actually made his point. Advantage - Donohue.
According to the orthodoxy, art is compelled to disturb and disrupt, if it's meaningful, etc. And I know, I know - artists should be free to express themselves and operate in some sort of parallel universe not subject to the laws of common sense, but Ms. Loar, here's the thing - and listen closely please - it will only take a second:
I live in a small town that lost over 30 people in the World Trade Center - that's 30 families - hundreds of people directly effected by that cold, cruel act whose seeds were born in the same kind of religious enmity shown so cavalierly by the Copia Center in this display. That kind of insolent hostility - clearly supported by your organization -carries more significance than it did 4 months ago.
No - I'm not making a moral equivalent. I fully understand the difference between 9/11 and a decidedly dopey installation in some Napa Valley wine and food temple. Don't get me wrong.
In the end I'm just one voice barking in the wind and I understand that, but I for one wish Mr. Mondavi had spent his $20 million on something more substantive than a self-congratulatory museum that celebrates callous disrespectful envenomizations.
In other words - Stick to the cabernet in the Julia Child Cafeteria and leave the Catholics alone.
