Tag Archives: Television

Daily Prompt: Green-Eyed Monster: Jessie’s Girl

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Tell us about the last time you were really, truly jealous of someone. Did you act on it? Did it hurt your relationship?

I am either very out of touch with my feelings/emotions or is is too early for me to think of the last time I was really jealous or I am just happy when my friends become successful?  Since I came up with nothing, here is what you get:  A classic example of jealousy, set to a beat that will stick in your head all day.

jessies-girl_616

Jessie is a friend, yeah
I know he’s been a good friend of mine
But lately something’s changed that ain’t hard to define
Jessie’s got himself a girl and I want to make her mine

And she’s watching him with those eyes
And she’s lovin’ him with that body, I just know it
Yeah ‘n’ he’s holding her in his arms
Late, late at night

You know, I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
Where can I find a woman like that

I play along with the charade
There doesn’t seem to be a reason to change
You know, I feel so dirty when they start talking cute
I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably mute

‘Cause she’s watching him with those eyes
And she’s lovin’ him with that body, I just know it
And he’s holding her in his arms
Late, late at night

You know, I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
Where can I find a woman like that

Like Jessie’s girl
I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
Where can I find a woman
Where can I find a woman like that

And I’m lookin’ in the mirror all the time
Wondering what she don’t see in me, I’ve been funny
I’ve been cool with the lines
Ain’t that the way love supposed to be

Tell me, where can I find a woman like that

You know, I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
I want Jessie’s girl

Where can I find a woman like that
Like Jessie’s girl
I wish that I had Jessie’s girl
I want, I want Jessie’s girl

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Rear View Mirror: My Week

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Week In Review:

I have heard said that dogs are better than children because you don’t have to pay for their college education. After spending the last week with four dogs in the house, I can honestly say that even if I did have to pay for their college, I feel pretty safe. A two week small engine repair correspondence course through the mail is all I would be on the hook for, but Ivy League, no. R commented that is was a lot like taking care of “differently-abled five year olds.” Two five year olds , and one mostly-deaf-half-blind-granny-chihuahua, and one chihuahua that “acts more like a cat” which we all know is just a nice way of saying “total fucking bitch.” I would leave every morning after making individualized specialty breakfasts for them and remind them of their lists of chores that they needed to complete that day. Upon my return that evening, absolutely nothing was checked off the list. I mean honestly, how hard is it for an Italian Greyhound to sit on hold with the bank to refi a home loan? Selfish.

I looked through the photos on my phone and it looks like I didn’t take any this week that were worth saving, but I did save a couple photos of a little pig.

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Work is work. Have you ever seen that episode of “Twilight Zone” called “Last Man on Earth”? It is pretty much like that for me at work, just tag “Without ADD” to the end of the title. Except I don’t break my glasses because I have a backup pair [SPOILER ALERT]. See what happens when you pay attention? You learn shit. I blame MTV.

I have come up with a great idea for a vlog from it, total art through adversity. It would be me asking people questions, being completely ignored, a second or two later, they look up from their phone and say “what?” THE END. The vlog title is “Did I Say That Out Loud?” The questions will be hilarious. Let’s make it happen. Or have you stopped reading because someone re-posted that picture of a cat looking inquisitive with a funny question as a caption? Darn you skeptical-looking animals!

All the dog care required me to alter/postpone/skip my fitness schedule, so naturally, in five days, I have become morbidly obese and am being fork-lifted out my living room window as I type this. I will be spending all next week pushing a block across the floor and wiggling a huge rope, two very popular entry-level gym activities employed by the trainers at my gym. It’s part cardio, part muscle strength, but mostly humiliation. Wiggle the rope, fatty. Wiggle. The. Rope.

I probably watched some TV and listened to some podcasts, nothing sticks out as note-worthy, other than Selected Shorts and their recent partnering with David Sedaris. That Daft Punk Soul Train video was great.

Looks like over at Wasp & Pear (where I ‘archive’ my life), it was mostly Style Icons and photos of abandoned places (so same old). I continue to love Tumblr more than facebook, it is just so much more interesting. It’s like if facebook and twitter had a really nerdy kid that went to art school and spent all of his free time trolling the internet for beautiful/interesting photos/writings/videos. Yes, I arbitrarily assigned a gender to the facebook/twitter offspring. It is what Pinterest could have been if the #weddings hashtag never existed or was blocked/banned. Is writing ‘hashtag’ after writing #hashtag the same thing as saying “PIN number?”

Over at Waldina, it looks like it was Studs Turkel, Morrissey, Mt. St. Helens, Lewis & Clark, and Pam Grier that occupied my interests last week. Nice variety.

I did take a photo last night of a rhododendron in front of the house across the street from Kurt and Courtney‘s old house.  You should drive by, the entire wall is in bloom.

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Happy Birthday, Fred Rogers – Style Icon

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Fred Rogers would be 85 today.  He was the kindest, most gentle adult that most kids my age every knew.  He spoke to us as people and inspired us to think about our feelings.  He taught us empathy and compassion.  He changed our lives and the world is a better place because of him.  Ladies and gentlemen, Fred Rogers.  Style Icon.

NAME: Fred McFeely Rogers
OCCUPATION: Minister, Television Personality
BIRTH DATE: March 20, 1928
DEATH DATE: February 27, 2003
EDUCATION: Rollins College, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
PLACE OF BIRTH: Latrobe, Pennsylvania
PLACE OF DEATH: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
AKA: Mister Rogers

BEST KNOWN FOR: The much-loved host of the public television show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, which ran on PBS from 1968 to 2001.

Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was an American educator, Presbyterian minister, songwriter, author, and television host. Rogers was most famous for creating and hosting Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968–2001), that featured his gentle, soft-spoken personality and directness to his audiences.

Initially educated to be a minister, Rogers was displeased with the way television addressed children and made an effort to change this when he began to write for and perform on local Pittsburgh-area shows dedicated to youth. The Public Broadcasting System developed his own nationally-aired show in 1968 and, over the course of three decades on television, he became an indelible American icon of children’s entertainment and education, as well as a symbol of compassion, patience, and morality. He was also known for his advocacy of various public causes. His testimony before a lower court in favor of time shifting was cited in a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Betamax case, and he gave now-famous testimony to a U.S. Senate committee, advocating government funding for children’s television.

Rogers was honored extensively for his life work in children’s education. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor; a Peabody Award for his career; and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Two resolutions recognizing his work were unanimously passed by U.S. Congress, one of his trademark sweaters was acquired and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution, and several buildings and works of art in Pennsylvania are dedicated to his memory.

In 1996, Mister Fred Rogers was ranked #35 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

I’m not that interested in ‘mass’ communications. I’m much more interested in what happens between this person and the one person watching. The space between the television set and that person who’s watching is very holy ground.

These two clips will remind you of his power and vision and stay with you the whole day:

In 1997, Fred Rogers was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmys. His acceptance speech is one of the most gentle, moving, humble, and powerful statements I’ve seen in a long time. Even the way he accepts the award from Tim Robbins — in a gentle, curious manner, just standing back and calmly smiling at the crowd — it’s amazing. As the clip ends, his standing ovation begins.

His speech that he made before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications to support funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  In about six minutes of testimony, Rogers spoke of the need for social and emotional education that public television provided. He passionately argued that alternative television programming like his Neighborhood helped encourage children to become happy and productive citizens, sometimes opposing less positive messages in media and in popular culture.

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Yvonne DeCarlo – Styel Icon

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Reinvention.  I love it.  There are risks and challenges, but also great rewards.  One being the confusion of others.  It is not only in Hollywood that people get typecast.  People love to attach quick descriptors to people, to categorize them for easy processing.  When you do something that appears to be out of character, it messes with people’s heads and is brilliant.  Moses’ mother and Lilly Munster?  What?  That is the same women?  Yes indeed.  Ladies and gentlemen,  Yvonne DeCarlo. Style Icon.

NAME: Yvonne DeCarlo
OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Television Actress, Pin-up
BIRTH DATE: September 01, 1922
DEATH DATE: January 08, 2007
PLACE OF BIRTH: Point Gray, Canada
PLACE OF DEATH: Woodland Hills, California

BEST KNOWN FOR: Actress Yvonne DeCarlo was Moses’ wife in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, but is better known for playing the matriarch on TV’s The Munsters.

Yvonne De Carlo (September 1, 1922 – January 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced (1945); Anna in Criss Cross (1949); Sephora the wife of Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956), starring Charlton Heston; and Amantha Starr in Band of Angels (1957) with Clark Gable. In the early 1960s, De Carlo accepted the offer to play Lily Munster for the CBS television series The Munsters, alongside Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Yvonne De Carlo was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6124 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 6715 Hollywood Blvd. for her contribution to television.

The year 1964 was a rocky one for De Carlo, as she was deeply in debt. After having worked for over 30 years, her film career came to a sudden end, and she was suffering from depression. She signed a contract with Universal Studios after receiving an offer to perform the female lead role in The Munsters opposite Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster. She was also the producers’ choice to play Lily Munster when Joan Marshall, who played Phoebe, was dropped from consideration for the role. When De Carlo was asked how a glamorous actress could succeed as a ghoulish matriarch of a haunted house, she replied simply, “I follow the directions I received on the first day of shooting: ‘Play her just like Donna Reed.’

In her autobiography, published in 1987, she listed 22 intimate friends, including Prince Aly Khan, Billy Wilder, Burt Lancaster, Howard Hughes, Robert Stack and Robert Taylor.

Yvonne DeCarlo – Styel Icon.

Sesame Street – Not So Secret Obsession

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On this day in 1969, the pioneering children’s television program Sesame Street made its broadcast debut. Two years earlier, television producer Joan Ganz Cooney teamed up with the Carnegie Foundation to create a children’s show that would harness the “addictive qualities of television” for a greater good. Early childhood education became their focus, and Sesame Street was the first program for kids that was a collaborative effort between educators, child psychologists, and artists.

Based in a fictional inner-city neighborhood, the show featured an integrated cast of characters and gave national exposure to Jim Hensen‘s Muppets. The producers made a point of highlighting diversity and inclusiveness, and their prominent roles for black actors and incorporation of foreign language vocabulary initially caused states like Mississippi’s Board of Education to ban the show. Writers often wrote in adult humor and brought in guests like Stevie Wonder to encourage parents to watch with their children, and not simply use the show as a babysitter. Deaf and disabled actors were invited on. Even the Muppets themselves were of different colors and came from different walks of life. Bert and Ernie shared a neat basement apartment at 123 Sesame Street, and others, like Big Bird, made his nest in an abandoned lot by a trash dump, near his neighbor, Oscar the Grouch.

Many of the Muppet characters were designed to represent specific age groups and reflect their unique hopes and fears. Noticing children’s ability to sing commercial jingles from memory, the writers built in musical and animated skits throughout the program that highlighted numbers and letters, repeating them throughout like commercials. Characters like the beat reporter Kermit the Frog and the globe- trotting foreign correspondent Grover encouraged children to expand their imaginations to the larger community.
Sesame Street has now been on public television for more than 40 years, with many generations of loyal listeners. Today, the show and its global outreach program, Sesame Workshops, bring the message of inclusiveness, respect, and friendship throughout the world, encouraging communities to adapt the show to their own cultural needs.

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Murder, She Wrote – Not So Secret Obsession

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I have all the available seasons of Murder She Wrote saved in my NetFLix Streaming queue, I find them comforting, like old friends.  Even the crimes seem civilized, somehow.  Maybe I will watch one tonight, maybe you should too.Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series, The Law & Harry McGraw. It is one of the most successful and longest-running television shows in history, with close to 23 million viewers in its prime, and was a staple of its Sunday night lineup for a decade. The series is also successful around the world.

Lansbury was nominated for a total of ten Golden Globes and 12 Emmy Awards for her work on Murder, She Wrote. She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations for outstanding lead actress in a drama series for Murder, She Wrote, with those nominations netting her four Golden Globe awards. The series received three nominations but no wins in the Outstanding Drama Series category at the Emmys. It was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category six times and won twice.

Since the series ended in 1996, a series of four TV movies were released between 1997 and 2003, a game created by Legacy Interactive was released for the PC platform in 2009, and a second game is to be released in March 2012. and a spin-off book series, written by Donald Bain, continues to the present.

The show revolved around the day-to-day life of a retired English teacher who, after being widowed in her early fifties, becomes a very successful mystery writer. Despite fame and fortune, Jessica remains a resident of Cabot Cove, a cozy coastal town in Maine, and maintains her links with all of her old friends, never letting her success go to her head. Exterior shots of Cabot Cove were filmed in Mendocino, California.

Murder rears its ugly head with great regularity in her vicinity (so improbably often that the mystery term “Cabot Cove syndrome” was eventually coined to describe the constant appearance of dead bodies in remote locations). Jessica invariably proves more perceptive than the official investigators, who are almost always willing to arrest the most likely suspect. By carefully piecing the clues together and asking astute questions, she always manages to trap the real murderer, who, given the series’ “special guest star” policy, was often played by a famous film or TV personality.

Gladys Knight – Video That Changed My Life

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This is how it’s done. You just got schooled by Gladys Knight. This performance is one of my favorites, she is enjoying herself so much.

Yvonne DeCarlo – Styel Icon

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NAME: Yvonne DeCarlo
OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Television Actress, Pin-up
BIRTH DATE: September 01, 1922
DEATH DATE: January 08, 2007
PLACE OF BIRTH: Point Gray, Canada
PLACE OF DEATH: Woodland Hills, California

BEST KNOWN FOR: Actress Yvonne DeCarlo was Moses’ wife in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, but is better known for playing the matriarch on TV’s The Munsters.

Yvonne De Carlo (September 1, 1922 – January 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced (1945); Anna in Criss Cross (1949); Sephora the wife of Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956), starring Charlton Heston; and Amantha Starr in Band of Angels (1957) with Clark Gable. In the early 1960s, De Carlo accepted the offer to play Lily Munster for the CBS television series The Munsters, alongside Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Yvonne De Carlo was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6124 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 6715 Hollywood Blvd. for her contribution to television.

The year 1964 was a rocky one for De Carlo, as she was deeply in debt. After having worked for over 30 years, her film career came to a sudden end, and she was suffering from depression. She signed a contract with Universal Studios after receiving an offer to perform the female lead role in The Munsters opposite Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster. She was also the producers’ choice to play Lily Munster when Joan Marshall, who played Phoebe, was dropped from consideration for the role. When De Carlo was asked how a glamorous actress could succeed as a ghoulish matriarch of a haunted house, she replied simply, “I follow the directions I received on the first day of shooting: ‘Play her just like Donna Reed.’

In her autobiography, published in 1987, she listed 22 intimate friends, including Prince Aly Khan, Billy Wilder, Burt Lancaster, Howard Hughes, Robert Stack and Robert Taylor.

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Fred Rogers – Style Icon

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Fred Rogers would be 84 today.  He was the kindest, most gentle adult that most kids my age every knew.  He spoke to us as people and inspired us to think about our feelings.  He taught us empathy and compassion.  He changed our lives and the world is a better place because of him.  Ladies and gentlemen, Fred Rogers.  Style Icon.

NAME: Fred McFeely Rogers
OCCUPATION: Minister, Television Personality
BIRTH DATE: March 20, 1928
DEATH DATE: February 27, 2003
EDUCATION: Rollins College, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
PLACE OF BIRTH: Latrobe, Pennsylvania
PLACE OF DEATH: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
AKA: Mister Rogers

BEST KNOWN FOR: The much-loved host of the public television show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, which ran on PBS from 1968 to 2001.

Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was an American educator, Presbyterian minister, songwriter, author, and television host. Rogers was most famous for creating and hosting Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968–2001), that featured his gentle, soft-spoken personality and directness to his audiences.

Initially educated to be a minister, Rogers was displeased with the way television addressed children and made an effort to change this when he began to write for and perform on local Pittsburgh-area shows dedicated to youth. The Public Broadcasting System developed his own nationally-aired show in 1968 and, over the course of three decades on television, he became an indelible American icon of children’s entertainment and education, as well as a symbol of compassion, patience, and morality. He was also known for his advocacy of various public causes. His testimony before a lower court in favor of time shifting was cited in a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Betamax case, and he gave now-famous testimony to a U.S. Senate committee, advocating government funding for children’s television.

Rogers was honored extensively for his life work in children’s education. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor; a Peabody Award for his career; and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Two resolutions recognizing his work were unanimously passed by U.S. Congress, one of his trademark sweaters was acquired and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution, and several buildings and works of art in Pennsylvania are dedicated to his memory.

In 1996, Mister Fred Rogers was ranked #35 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

I’m not that interested in ‘mass’ communications. I’m much more interested in what happens between this person and the one person watching. The space between the television set and that person who’s watching is very holy ground.

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Columbo – Not So Secret Obsession

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I have often claimed that if left to my own devices, I would have the exact same TV watching habits as my grandfather in 1978.  It’s true.  I could watch Columbo over and over.  I am have not been able to pinpoint exactly why I enjoy it as much as I do, but I am sure that it has to do with the character being considered an outsider, having his abilities being underestimated, and him using that to his advantage.  I find that entertaining.

Columbo is an American crime fiction television film series, which starred Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. The character and television show were created by William Link and Richard Levinson. The show popularized the inverted detective story format. With the exception of a few special episodes, almost every episode began by showing the commission of the crime and its perpetrator. Therefore, there is no “whodunit” element. The plot mainly revolves around how the perpetrator, whose identity is already known to the audience, will finally be caught and exposed by Columbo.

Lt. Columbo is a friendly, verbose, disheveled-looking, American police detective (of Italian descent) who is consistently underestimated by his suspects. Suspects are initially both reassured and distracted by his circumstantial speech and increasingly irritating pestering behavior. Despite his unprepossessing appearance and apparent absentmindedness, he shrewdly solves all of his cases and secures all evidence needed for indictment. His formidable eye for detail and meticulous and dedicated approach become apparent only late in the storyline.

The character first appeared in a 1960 episode of the television-anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show, which was itself partly derived from a short story by Levinson and Link published in an issue of the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine as “Dear Corpus Delicti”. Levinson and Link adapted the TV drama into the stage play Prescription: Murder, and a TV-movie based on the play was broadcast in 1968. The series began on a Wednesday presentation of the “NBC Mystery Movie” rotation: McCloud, McMillan & Wife, and other whodunits. After one season, the series moved as a group to Sundays and were replaced on Wednesdays by a series with a similar format with fare such as The Snoop Sisters, Cool Million, and Banacek. Columbo aired regularly from 1971-78 on NBC, and then less frequently on ABC beginning in 1989. The final episode was broadcast in 2003.

The episodes are all movie-length, between 70 and 100 minutes long. The early episodes ran for an hour, until the decision was made to expand them to full television movie-length. On October 2, 2011, reruns of Columbo began airing Sunday evenings on the classic television network Me-TV.

In 1997, “Murder by the Book” was ranked #16 on TV Guide’s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. and in 1999, the magazine ranked Lt. Columbo #7 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.

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