The Monkees Show on Smithsonian

Someone called me last night to say they had a Monkees documentary on the Smithsonian channel. I remember seeing a note about a documentary over at the newsgroup on the Monkees, but hadn't opened it or read it.

That's the first time, actually, that I ever heard of the Smithsonian channel, but I didn't process it till I got this call. The Smithsonian has their own channel? Not on my TV, but I don't have digital cable, just basic. So I couldn't have watched it if I tried.

But at the newsgroup, someone had been invited as a "VIP" to preview it, and this person posted the URL and the password to do that with. So I went there and, sure enough, it was the entire show. So I watched it, even though my computer is mildly halting. It worked OK.

As I was watching it I noticed it was all familiar, leading me to conclude that it was a rehash of the same interviews as was on the Biography show one time, or somewhere. Then I read the other couple posts on the newsgroups and that was someone else's sense too.

They did what you do with a story like the Monkees in a brief amount of time, 46 minutes, you make it a big conflict with Don Kirschner, you divide it up into success and sliding toward failure, and, in the show, that was the pivot.

As to that being historically accurate, I don't think it is entirely. Obviously the Monkees phenomenon had a shelf life, and it wasn't going to go 10 years if they had Kirschner running it. It was going to have an arc, a beginning and end anyway.

There were things that had to be left out, and they let you draw conclusions that weren't necessarily true. Item, it was said that Headquarters was number one for a week, but that the public preferred the Monkees under Kirschner to the Monkees on their own. But I was there, dude, and it wasn't that way at all. They were still raging strong with Headquarters, but when you have Sgt. Pepper coming out the next week, you tell me who was going to be number one that week! Headquarters came out before the '67 tour was in full force. That was a big deal. It was out before the second season. They had enormous hits still to come, plus the Pisces album. That wasn't mentioned on the show.

There were obviously tensions, weird dynamics within the group. It was a TV show and needed a TV show to sustain itself very long. It was a time like now. You keep going or you're crushed by shifting tastes and competition.

As to Don Kirschner, his stuff was great as stuff. But the more interesting stuff is stuff without him.

Good ARRiddance, Pirates

There's good news! Five Somali pirates drowned. Yea!

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and port town resident said Saturday.

Went down with their share of $3 million in ransom money. Good! Hope they enjoy their booty at the bottom of the bay. Enjoy yourselves, morons.

4 Minutes

"We only got four minutes to save the world." I like this song by Madonna and Justin. I got it as a free download the other day, from a sticker on a CD I bought.

I hear it on the radio once in a while and think how great it sounds. So now I can listen to it any old time. Ya-ha!

Four minutes is the amount of time we used to get on a Super 8 movie cartridge. I used to think how cool it'd be to have more time, so you weren't rushing through taking a movie. Little did I know four minutes was about right. Anything more than that you've got long, extended boring movies instead of the quick cuts and rushing from one subject to another.

I've had video cameras over the years, including a black and white one in 1979. It needed to be hooked up to a home VCR at the time, so it was impossible (for me) to be dragging it anywhere besides the apartment where we lived. The few videos that still exist are boring, the kids, I don't know what. But at least they have this to their credit, they're short.

My next video camera was a color one, and it seems like we could put a VHS tape in it ... or maybe it too was hooked up to a VCR. Now that I think of it, I don't remember taking videos around outside. The ones I took were inside. Someone broke in and stole it, so it's long gone.

There's the video feature on my Olympus camera, but it barely counts because the videos are just small crap. And the video feature on my phone, worse yet. Those don't count.

Now I have a Flip Ultra, and it takes video for around 55 minutes before it's filled up. I was just videoing the dog and thinking I should keep it around four minutes. I videotaped a thing yesterday that was 50-some minutes. The file is huge, hard to handle. You make a copy of it and it takes forever to process, like trimming it. Although it was a lot faster with the Flip software (still crappy) that came with it than with Windows Movie Maker.

Facebook

Is Facebook really that interesting? Whether you or your relatives are watching a video, ordering food, taking a bath, or sweeping the floor ... is this something that can be sustained over the long term, as far as checking on it?

The saving grace for all such questions when it comes to the internet is: It doesn't have to be sustained over the long term, because there's isn't a long term. Meaning, there's always something else to come along to take its place before it gets overly boring. And what is not cool is passe and ignored. Like My Space.

For me My Space was worse, because of all the switching of backgrounds and instantly playing songs, then they loaded it up with ads and it slowed down to a crawl, you could barely get logged on. So many glitzy blinking, garbage looking graphics ... I lost interest fast. I was helping some of my "friends," (relation), try to get their code in the right place. It's a mess.

Facebook is simpler, more attractive. But is it interesting?

Burris

I wish they'd seat Roland Burris and get it over with.

Yes, Blago seems like he might have a crooked side. But I do believe in the rule of law. If he hasn't been convicted of anything, and there's no evidence that Burris did anything wrong, then whatever the rule is in Illinois for appointing senators ought to be followed.

To me this is just common sense and it's difficult to believe they're dragging it out with these phony reasons like his paper is missing a signature.

Maybe he's not the best guy for the job -- I have no idea. But if we have a law that senators are appointed in that way, follow it. If you don't like the law, change it through normal means.

The ER

I experienced firsthand today all the excitement and pacing that is the modern ER. Meaning, of course, that we sat there hour after hour with very little actually happening.

You'd think some of this stuff could be expedited in some way, the labs, the reports you get back (or don't get back). Don't they use digital technology? Have access to modern methods?

First there's all the laborious stuff of getting (the person's) allergies, medications, past surgeries, etc. The fact that she's been to the hospital a dozen times in the past doesn't lead to pulling the files and having this information.

Then everything else meanders along. Finally they took a CT scan and we sat. A nurse came in to check on the pain level and said the CT scan didn't show such-and-such. But the doctor never came in -- never came in -- to say what the conclusions were.

An hour or nearly two passed and two new doctors came in and basically started over. When did the pain start? Where's it at? What did you have for lunch? etc.

Being at the ER is a real drag!

Minnesota

I'm glad Al Franken finally won the election in Minnesota. It's unfortunate it took them two months to count the votes. Now if he could just be in Washington and get seated as he should. But Norm Coleman is tangling it up in legal red tape. Which is kind of weird because he said two months ago that if he were behind, he wouldn't bother with a recount but would "step back." Maybe he wasn't telling the truth?

The way it looks, though, is that eventually -- sooner or later -- Al will be a senator in reality. That'll be cool.

I used to get Al Franken's mail. True. Sort of true. I had a page about him on the internet, and for some unknown reason business credit card places took Al Franken's name for mine and would send me credit card offers addressed to "Al Franken" with my mailing address. I haven't had one for quite a while.

Way to go, Minnesota, finally. Remember, that's the land of 10,000 lakes. But if there's a recount they might find it's only 8,500.

Napping

Napping is good for you, according to sleep experts. Say that at Wikipedia and it'd tell you to site a source. So my source is just my experience of hearing these things over the years.

Sometimes napping is good for me, though, and sometimes it isn't. I love it when I can doze off, as has happened numerous times, then wake up 10 minutes later and have the feeling that I've slept for hours. What's worse by far is to sleep for hours and wake up feeling worse than before.

The other day -- maybe it was New Year's Eve -- I took an afternoon nap and woke up feeling queasy. Nothing sounded good to eat till some hours had passed.

Yesterday I laid down and after 10-15 minutes the phone rang. So talk, talk. Then 5 minutes after that the other phone rang. Which meant getting up and writing something down. By now it was frustrating, so I got up. Plus I had a cat behind my leg, the dog on the other side of my leg. My leg was so tightly pinned down from their weight it was like wearing medically necessary stockings. Skin tight.

Today I have all the time in the world to take a nap but don't really feel like it. And I got up at 5:30 a.m., so that's hard to figure.

Final Bush Countdown

We have -- today's the 3rd, 20 minus 3 -- 17 days -- 2 weeks and slop -- left of the disastrous Bush presidency.

What a long, terrible journey it's been, having this out and out crook as our president. The guy has been one miserable, devious scalawag from first to last. He has been without a doubt the absolute worst leader this country could ever have gotten, unless it was his chief henchman, Cheney.

It's like a nightmare in so many ways. I know my poor body's black and blue from eight years of pinching myself to wake up. Then I realize -- till I forget again -- I am awake, this is reality, we have scum in the White House.

Now they're trying to salvage a legacy for the loser. Ha! And it's funny, they're going about it the same way they ran the entire presidency, by lying, by devious means, underhanded, crooked. Like we're going to forget. I'm not going to forget. I know what Bush was, worthless.

Hallelujah that we have Obama coming in! I was at the exercise place and he was on CNN. They don't have the volume on, so he was just up there chatting with someone, an interview about his upbringing. I had to stop and just look at him and watch for a few minutes. The guy is a breath of fresh air all by himself and on his own terms, of course, but after Bush, he's an entire atmosphere of fresh air.

Bush has been a walking, talking, complete and total disaster. May he and his memory rot.

Charles Barkley

This is disgusting at so many levels. If you've got a hot date, Brainiac, and you happen to be a rich guy besides, get a room, an apartment, a suite.

It's incredible that this yahoo would be caught in a deal like this. How much of a challenge would it be for a millionaire celebrity to make it home without getting pulled over?

Jimi Hendrix

I've been enjoying a personal marathon of the Electric Ladyland album today. Starting last night, especially with the songs 1983 and the one following it, melded together.

I've liked it for years but never listened intensely. So that's been going on. Those are beautiful songs.

My Policy on Obama

It's amazing. I became a political drop out as soon as Obama was elected. I have had ZERO interest in following any of it beyond the cabinet picks of the first week or two. I have had no interest in what the blogosphere has been saying, any griping about these individuals. Or Caroline Kennedy. And pretty much no interest in the Blago scandal, except I felt chagrined that the media tried to implicate Obama in it. But I totally -- TOTALLY -- tuned out on watching the news shows on this stuff, so I really missed it.

I can see Bush is definitely leaving Obama a mess to deal with. So completely radical things have to be coming down the pike to get it cleaned up. At this point, what Obama does is OK with me. It just seems so frustrating that there has to be this enormous gap between election day and inauguration day. One, Bush is still in there like a drunken sailor. Two, Obama has to take heat from the media when he really has no power to do anything.

Any other controversies -- Obama with no shirt on, whatever -- I haven't been following. It's all been a zone-out time. We made it to the election, we won, that's it.

A Concert I Went To

I thought the internet was a respository of all information, but I can't find any remembrance or mention of a concert I went to in (I think it was) 1971. In Des Moines. It might have been 1972.

Featured at this concert, at the Iowa State Fairgrounds were Leon Russell, Albert King, and J.J. Cale. Does anyone out there remember this concert or tour?

I remember J.J. Cale had a really weird looking guitar, like it was a technological marvel, holes, wires, gadgets. I got one or two Albert King LPs after that at some point. And we loved Leon at the time. Haven't heard much about him lately.

The PC Cupholder

I was absentminded in the car. My cup holder was out. It looks kind of like an open disc drive on a computer. I pushed it gently, actually expecting it to go in. It didn't, then I was reminded, it's not a disc drive but a cup holder.