I grew up in an NBC household; I have vague memories of John Chancellor reading the news and stronger memories of Tom Brokaw doing the same. Walter Cronkite never really meant a lot to me as an anchor; I think I sometimes used to get him confused with Captain Kangaroo. As for Frank McCourt, plenty people tell me that Angela's Ashes was great, but the last thing I ever want to read is another Irishman recounting poverty and his father's alcoholism (or another Jew on the Holocaust, another Italian about petty crime, etc.), so I've never read it. I'm aware that both of these men made Important Contributions In Their Field and I am not at all attempting to diminish that; I just don't really have anything to say about them. But don't let that stop you if you do!
Monday, July 20, 2009
22
Not to mention another New Guinean on cannibalism.
come on. What's summer without some long pig on the barby?
I'm saving my eulogies for the next crop of deaths: Patrick Swayze, Elizabeth Taylor and Edward Kennedy.
Elizabeth Taylor will never die. She's at least 70% android by this point, and spends 23 hours a day in suspended animation, waking only to have her Academy Awards and collection of Jewelry paraded past her immobile head on a conveyor belt, before being slipped a Nembutal and returning to a torpid state.
Pffft. Michael Jackson was 95% silicone and look what happened to him.
I just wish the Summer of Death would start taking some people who REALLY deserve it, like old Republican racist codgers (preferably in the Senate). Instead, it'll probably be Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd (old, and formerly(?) racist, codger, but Democrat) who go next.
I've always felt conflicted about Frank McCourt. He was a joy to see interviewed, but there was always the sense that he and his brothers were very consciously playing the blarney Irishman for American amusement.
When I was a pup, guys like that were called P.I.'s - professional Irishman. I've never read any of McCourt's book don't feel like I've missed a thing.
Yeah, I've heard that term, too, and think it rather apt of the McCourt's. I swear he exaggerated that accent to Lucky Charms Leprechaun sometimes.
Is that anything like the Professional Jews in my family? Oy the dertseylungs I had to oyshaltn!
In high school I did a nifty impression of Walter Cronkite. Once I nailed his cadence, just about any line with penis in it was comedy gold, as in, "and now a look at my penis."
That's the way it is?
My mom's one of those people who wet their pants over Angela's Ashes. I gave her a copy of Richard Wright's classic Black Boy, (one of my all-time favorites).
She said the latter wasn't as good.
My mother has no taste.
Other "great" books and the exact word count before you discovered you made a terrible mistake: Kite Runner; 112 words.
For years I kept betting that Al Jourgensen of Ministry was going to be the next celebrity to die, but it was his career that died and the guy himself is still kicking.
Mccourt's book hit a sweet spot and totally benefited from the Irish insanity that was pop culture in the mid 90s. Between 1992 and 1997 we got Patriot Games, Devil's Own, The Jackal, Blown Away, In the Name of the Father, Michael Collins, The Boxer, The Crying Game, just to name a few of the high profiles films on everyone's mind. There is no way Angela's Ashes wins the pulitzer today.
I can't believe you forgot about House of Pain.
yeah yeah. jump around. jump up jump. get down. etc. But they were about as Irish as Brad Pitt's accent. People who actually think they are "Irish" would probably also ask to have "Trainspotting' included. ALSO: Notre Dame's nationally dominant early 90s football program. Rudy! (1993)
John Chancellor AND "the last thing I ever want to read is another Irishman recounting poverty and his father's alcoholism?" I no longer feel cold and alone.
Cold and alone? Some whiskey'll cure that.
Aggggh Pug Ma Hone
I guess CBS was the chosen information provider at my house. Although, we watched relatively little TV at all. (My mother, coming into the room and catching me watching whatever, would dependably say: "Mind Improvement Time!")
So yes -- Walter.
Frank McCourt? Not so much. When Will People Stop Making Their Book-Reading Decisions a Function of What Oprah Thinks?
Celebrity Death Beeper dot com has been taken!! GODDAMNIT.