Drew Carey: Whose Line Weird Newscasters: Not Necessarily the News

Source:The New Democrat

"Whose Line is it Anyway?" for anyone who's interested in the full title of the show and, if you are,  you probably keep score at home when you are watching bowling on TV.  This is a show that is almost completely off the cuff.  Four comedians or comedic actors on stage are given scenes to act out. Sounds simple enough, right?  The trick is that they have to act out these scenes as strange characters.

Weird Newscasters is a perfect example.  Two comedians are pretending to be news anchors but they have to play these anchors as weird characters.  One is an alcoholic who won't let the bar close down before he gets at least one more drink. One is a weatherman who's doing the weather as a construction worker who gets turned on every time he sees a woman walk by.  Another is a sportscaster who lets out big belches every time he talks about sports.

That's what you see in this scene.  This is a show that I would love to do myself or, at least, play the game.  I could give myself my own character to play or take what is given to me.  I would love to play the anchor of the 3 am news and call it the Insomniac News Hour, or something like that.  There would be breaking news about Lindsay Lohan being pulled over for speeding and then a cut to "The Insomniac Classic Movie, "Attack of the Killer Lettuce," or something stupid like that.

This is my favorite game on Whose Line because it doesn't look a lot different from what actually passes as news today.  They go on for days about things that should be one day stories or only be given brief mentions.  Instead, they're still being covered a week later by the same people and shows.  News about Justin Bieber replaces really important issues like government spying on Americans and privacy. Today if you watch The Onion or Whose Line you might get the same amount of real information as you get from CNN, MSNBC or FNC.

Drew Carey: 'Whose Line Super Heros'

Source:Drew Carey- comedian Colin Mocherie on Whose Line.

Source:The New Democrat

"This is my first Superheroes upload. This is from late season 3."

From Drew Carey

Who's Line is it Anyway had a segment called Superheros in which several comedian contestants played made up, non-existent (even in Hollywood), SuperHeros.  To begin, one contestant would be given the beginning of a scenario about some made up crisis.  For example: "Oh no, we are all out of Starbucks coffee, what am I going to do?  I'd better call my SuperHero friends to help me out!"

The first actor would make up a SuperHero name and play a role that the host, Drew Carey, would pick from many suggestions given by the audience.  An additional actor would join the ensemble every thirty seconds or so. The first actor would give the second actor a made up SuperHero name and the second actor would give the third actor a made up SuperHero name.  The plot would be improvised in real time until all of the actors were involved.

So you would see four actors with these crazy SuperHero names and let's say the crisis is no more Starbucks coffee in the entire world. The first SuperHero would be Caffeine Addict Boy (or something like that) and he would bring in Latte Girl and she would bring in Alcoholic Man telling them that the situation is okay because he has a ten year supply of scotch and bourbon so no one will go thirsty. And somehow all of these clowns would save the day and things would go back to normal for them.

Tony Baretta: Myra Breckinridge (1970) Starring Raquel Welch

Source:The New Democrat

Myra Breckinridge may be the best movie that ever flopped at the box office.  It lost more than the 1962 New York Mets who lost something like 120 games that season.  I don't believe the movie made a dime.  It was too far ahead of its time.  If it were made today with the right cast, it would probably be a huge success.

Raquel Welch plays Myra Breckinridge and really makes the movie worth watching all by herself. Watching her, it is very difficult to look at anyone or anything else.  She is at her hottest, sexiest, cutest and funniest.  She shows the world that she is much more than a hot and sexy babe.  She has great wit and stage presence.

Myra is a former gay man who is now a transgender woman.  She goes to Hollywood to claim what she believes to be her inheritance.  Her uncle,  Buck Loner (John Huston), an over-sexed horny bastard, runs an acting school that he inherited from his parents.  Myra thinks that he owes her half of it.

Buck has no idea that his nephew, his sister Gertrude's son, is now a women calling herself Myra Breckinridge.  She tells her uncle to pay up or she's going to a get a lawyer to get what she believes is hers.

To buy time, Buck gives Myra a job on the school faculty.  He tries  to prove that Myra never married his nephew and that he doesn't owe her anything.  He's right that she never married his nephew.  She is his nephew and she's now a woman.  She has a fake marriage license that keeps her in the game  until she can get what she really wants, the five-hundred-thousand dollars that she believes her uncle owes her.

While Myra is trying to get her money, she uses her time at the school to do research on modern young straight men with the goal of dominating them, one day.  This movie is hysterical.  It has all sorts of funny characters including a gay man  who plays the part of the queen perfectly.  There's also  a very young, baby-faced, Farah Fawcett who's actually cuter than Raquel, but not as sexy. 

Alfred Hitchcock: North by Northwest (1959)

Source:The New Democrat

North by Northwest is my favorite movie of all time.  Cary Grant is my favorite actor of all time and Alfred Hitchcock is probably my favorite director of all time.  I have a couple versions of this movie on DVD, saw it on Turner Classic Movies a couple of nights ago and again on  DVD last might.  I decided to write a blog about it today because I've been thinking about it a lot. This movie is Cary Grant, perhaps the best comedic actor of all time, at his best.

North by Northwest has all the ingredients of a great Hitchcock movie. A great plot, great writing, great cast,  Hitchcock's sense of humor, that Cary Grant shares, and James Mason. The very sexy and beautiful Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, The Russians are Coming) has a big role in the movie. According to my father, she's smarter, sexier, and more beautiful than Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe.  She reminds him of my mother.

Then, there's Jessie Royce Landis who plays Roger Thornhill's (Cary Grant) mother, a great smart ass,  even though she's only four years older. 

The movie is a Cold War thriller about a man, Van Damme (James Mason), who exports American weapons and national security secrets.  Thornhill gets caught up in it, accidentally, and you have a great movie.

Thornhill is a charming playboy New York advertising man who's just living his life as a very successful businessman.  He's kidnapped by Van Damme's henchmen at a New York bar.  They believe he has inside information about Van Damme's organization.

The Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill but he gets away.  He tries to get back in touch with Van Damme and instead connects with Lester Townsend, someone Van Damme had pretended to be.  The Van Damme crew, trying to murder Thornhill, instead murder Townsend.  They believe he also knows something about their organization that they want kept secret.  Thornhill is now not only on the run from Van Damme and company but also fron the NYC PD, the New York State PD, and  the Feds.

Thornhill once again escapes and is now on the run from everyone because of the murder he didn't commit.  This time, he escapes by train where he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who just happens to be an undercover Federal agent pretending to work for Philipp Van Damme.  She's actually working to bring down Van Damme's and his organization.  She has Thornhill believing she's on his side and helping him to escape.  She's actually just using him.

This movie starts in New York, moves to Chicago and then Indiana where the Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill and Thornhill is trying to meet the real George Kaplan to find out what this whole thing is about. The problem is that George Kaplan doesn't exist.  Back to Chicago Thornhill gets arrested again, thinking that he would be safer with the police than on the run. The Feds grab him instead and use him to help bering down Van Damme and company in Rapid City where Philipp Van Damme has a home.

This is one of the best action suspense comedies you'll ever see.

The New Republic: Issac Chotner: Ross Douhat Column On Young People: Individualism & Liberalism

Source:The New Democrat

This blog talks a lot about labels, especially what they mean in politics.  Thus, when I read a column in the  New Republic, that no longer looks like that great liberal magazine that once questioned the influence of governmental power in personal and economic lives, but now post columns that support both the welfare state and the nanny state, I feel the need to reply.

Young people love big government?  Do you really see a call for higher taxes, more centralized government  programs, and expansion of the war on drugs from young adults?  Do you hear them saying that legalizing same-sex-marriage would be a horrible mistake that would ruin our national moral fiber, that we not only need to outlaw same-sex-marriage but outlaw homosexuality all together?  Are they saying that privacy is dangerous and we need to prohibit not only currently illegal drugs but also currently legal drugs, e.g., like sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco.

The polling data from my Generation, X, and Generation Y show that big government is not popular with these people.  They want the freedom to make their own decisions.  They don't want a nanny state trying to run their lives for them or a welfare state making most of their economic decisions for them.

Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, help for the needy, public education, etc., such government programs at one level or another have always been popular and I imagine that they always will be.  These are social insurance programs for people who need them.  They intrude into personal space much less than a welfare or nanny state that seeks to manage the life of every citizen.

The future of American politics lies with the Ron Paul Libertarians on the Right, who may save the Republican Party from itself and eventually take conrol of it, and want government almost completely out of our lives, and the Brian Schweitzer (former governor of Montana) liberals on the left who believe in the safety net with equal rights and protections for all Americans, including  personal choice and autonomy over our personal lives.  Neither of these groups wants the government to try to run our lives for us.

However, the Bernie Sanders socialists and the social democrats on the far-left have their supporters and followers.  They, and the real welfare-staters, want to see a big, centralized, social democratic  government in this country. But they aren't a governing faction and will never be as long as they are putting down private enterprise and capitalism and trying to convince the middle class that they are under-taxed and that government simply needs more of their hard earn money. 

Slate Magazine: Dave Weigel: Sarah Palin vs. Beltway Republicans: Conservatism in 2014

Source:The New Democrat

If Rick Santorum and Sarah Palin are the faces of Conservatism in America in 2014, then we might as well start planning its funeral and Liberals can declare victory in this ongoing ideological war of some 50 years now. The only two Conservatives at CPAC last weekend were Senator Rand Paul and former U.S. Senator/actor/talk show host/commercial spokesperson, whatever the hell Fred Thompson is up to now. But the rest of them, including Ann Coulter, who came down from Mars to give a speech about the so-called "browning of America," are all out to lunch at an all-you-can-eat- for-50-cents buffet and couldn't give an accurate description of Conservatism and what it means to be a Conservative to save their lives.

The far right of the Republican Party thinks the government is not too big when it comes to our personal lives, actually too small.  This wing of the GOP is alive and well with plenty of spokespeople for it like Senator Santorum and Ann Coulter, the Neoconservatives, which I and others call them. But anytime someone in the GOP seeking national recognition tries to run to the left of the far Right, which is where most of the country is no matter how far to the left of the far Right they are, they are put down by the Neo-Cons and labeled liberal or socialist.

2014 could've been the year that Governor Chris Christie took the reigns of the conservative movement and used it to launch his 2016 presidential campaign, but as it looks now, he might have a better shot at watching Election Night 2016 from jail than running for president at this point, let alone being elected President because of his corruption issues in a State, New Jersey, that may have invented political corruption. Actually, right now, New Jersey is competing with Illinois and Louisiana for the title of most corrupt State in America.

If there is a face of Conservatism in America, it would be Rand Paul, but again, the far Right is not going to allow a Conservative Libertarian, who is a Federalist on both economic policy and social policy, to be their GOP nominee for President. As long as the GOP needs a base that still believes it is 1955 and didn't bother to grow up and modernize like the rest of the country, they won't have that one national candidate who can bring the party together. 

The Hill: Judd Gregg: Dems Now Look Ahead to Hillary

Source:The New Democrat

At risk of sounding like a sexist, even though I'm not, I'm not on the so-called HRC Bandwagon just yet, because the campaign to elect Hillary Clinton president in the third month of 2014 is more than 2.5 years away from the 2016 presidential election and she's not running as a liberal or a progressive or a centrist but as what I call a safe, electable, "resume" Democrat. In other words, vote for her not only because she can win but also because of what she's done in the past and what she's been doing since her husband left the White House 13 years ago.

I have a prediction:  Senator/Secretary Clinton or whatever title she goes by now (I doubt it's First Lady) will not be elected president unless she's able to communicate why she wants the job other than being the first female President of the United States.  It is an awesome job in the real sense of the word because of the power and responsibility that comes with it. It is the most important job in the world and even the far left now understands that, as much as they may hate giving America credit for anything positive. Some Democrats, hopefully real center-left liberals, will run to fill the void left by Mrs. Clinton if she decides to run for president without a message and vision for the country.

That Democrat will probably be under 60, or just 60 in Brian Schweitzer's case, or perhaps in my generation and born in the 1960s or so.  That person will be charming and well-liked, and be able to communicate with young people, raise a lot of money from them, and get them to organize and work for him or her. This sounds familiar because that is how a freshmen U.S. Senator from Illinois got elected president in 2008.  He was from the post-Clinton generation and had a different message than Hillary did in 2008. Actually, he had a message and Hillary had a name and would have represented a milestone had she been elected President.