James Comey (Don Quixote) tilts at America

James Comey is a modern day version of the Don Quixote—knight-errant. Comey, just like Don Quixote, is deluded and a master of bad judgement. Quixotic has become a word and it means “exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.”

Like Don Quixote crossing the countryside, James Comey has made the scene at countless TV studios. His story now is “how I got fired by orange hued Donald Trump” just for being a good guy. Funny…Comey’s inept handling of things may have changed American history.

Comey, a long, lanky man with a certain similarity to Don Quijote, now pleads his innocence. Comey may have torpedoed Hillary Clinton’s run for president in the final days when he announced the re-investigation of her emails. An FBI director jumping into the election at a point just 10 days before the election, doesn’t have any precedent in American history. Comey used his nobleman’s jousting pole and bashed Hillary to the ground a few feet from her lifelong goal—the Presidency.

Comey’s first windmill— presuming Hillary’s election victory before it ever happened and feeling he had to ensure her legitimacy—blew up in everybody’s face. Comey may have elected Donald Trump! And then Comey got fired by Trump. It’s all a TV show, right?

Comey, like the confused Don Quixote, created by author Miguel de Cervantes, plunged ahead against perceived foes, chimeras, shadowy outcomes, but somehow intruded upon reality. 

Note the connection between James Comey and Don Quixote: 

Don Quixote's tendency to intervene violently in matters irrelevant to himself, and his habit of not paying debts, result in privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often the victim).

(Wikipedia)

The connection becomes clear. Just as Don Quijote roamed the countryside looking for enemies, Comey now roams the land looking for TV studios to promote his new book—A Higher Loyalty. 

There is a higher loyalty here—to James Comey himself. And Comey’s main loyalty seems to his book sales. First he interfered in the 2016 election. That’s something to write about—though he spins his role in the whole affair. 

With the Comey book tour promoting A Higher Loyalty he’s stomping his oversize shoes all over the Mueller investigation. The man has a talent for inserting himself deep into the heart of American history. Comey seems impervious to his own real motives. The man is being disingenuous or lacks candor. The silver lining, Robert Mueller was brought in to handle the investigation.

Comey, an admittedly telegenic presence, has some of the hangdog appeal of Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha. He claims to be a knight in shining armor— working on behalf of America. 

For my money, he is more the knight-errant. 

Winter Olympics: must-see TV

NBC paid $963 million for the rights to air the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, a 24 percent jump over the $775 million it paid for the last Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Still, NBC has already made much of that back, selling more than $900 million in ad sales for the recent Winter games, a record according to the network.

The Winter Olympic Games got started in 1924. The Winter Olympics now alternates every two years with the Summer Olympics.

In 1896 Baron Pierre de Coubertin created the Modern Olympic Games. Coubertin, a French aristocrat with lofty, idealistic goals introduced the Olympic motto: "Citius, Altius, Fortius," Swifter, Higher, Stronger. Coubertin created the Olympics in three acts. The Opening Ceremony provides a festive Act I, Act II is the sports competition, and Act III concludes the show with the marathon race and  Closing Ceremony. 

Miguel de Moragas Spa, Nancy K. Rivenburgh and James K. Larson directed a research project on the role of television in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Television in the Olympics. Their work provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Olympics as a television show for the global audience.

The 1992 Olympic visuals emanated from state-of-the-art studios, four control rooms located within the stadium in the case of Barcelona, coordinating the output of dozens of cameras. The rich visual output got matched with a pre-produced musical soundtrack and the richly nuanced broadcasters commentary.

The Barcelona hosts compiled an extensive reference manual to assist broadcasters, supplying pertinent information Olympics and the host city. Broadcasters have great leeway on whether to use the official data or to meet the expectations of their particular viewing audience.

The Moragas Spa group noticed broadcasters adopt different personas move deftly from formal to informal tones of reportage. Olympic commentators present themselves as both insiders with valuable knowledge to share and alternately as “the humble observer of history, awed and lucky to be present.” (Moragas Spa 106).

The Moragas Spa group offered the example of the NBC reporters adopting an informal, playful style as the French team entered the stadium during the athletes’ parade at the Opening Ceremony. The American announcers waxed eloquent on the French record of success in the sport of fencing and added a lighthearted literary reference to Alexander Dumas, the creator of The Three Musketeers” … The broadcasters added  “and we’re told that the French, while they may not win the most medals, will, as always, live well. They brought their own wine to Barcelona.” (Moragas Spa 110)

The Moragas Spa team observed the broadcasters’ ability to adapt four distinct voices or perspetives:

1)    They used a mixed narrative model, the primary interpretive style was that of the ‘televised show’ with a supposedly knowledgeable, often well known host presenting him or herself as integral to experiencing the ceremony.

2)    NBC adopted an extremely colloquial tone for references to North American athletes.

3)    NBC announcers adopted a style more in line with news bulletins than with sports programs for commentaries on the athletes’ parade.

4)    The narrative voice adopted a mix between a historical report and the chronicle of events for describing the culture and political identity of the host city (Barcelona). (Moragas Spa 111)

The 1972 Munich games resulted in a remarkable exception to clichéd Olympic reporting. Palestinian terrorists entered the Olympic Village and took Israeli athletes hostage, the beginning of the terrible tragedy that unfolded over the next day. Jim McKay’s powerful moment-by-moment commentary form the broadcast booth of the 1972 Munich games. McKay, the ABC broadcaster, worked with exceptional skill and sensitivity. He covered the horrifying events like a seasoned newsman asked to function under the most difficult circumstances. McKay’s calm, dignified and intelligent work underlined the Olympic broadcaster as both news reporter and sports analyst.

Camera shots enhance the Olympic television narrative. Shots vary.  The CU, close-up shot offers detail and emotional expression The MS, medium shot, is a appropriate shot when viewing the dignitaries. The 1992 Barcelona Olympics employed personality shots of the entourage of Olympic insiders. A view of King Juan Carlos as a symbol of Spain proved popular: “the image of the King of Spain (Juan Carlos I) was interpreted on nearly every television station around the world as a popular and accessible image.” (Moragas Spa 119)

I was traveling in Spain during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Crowds gathered around television sets whenever Spain’s basketball team faced an international opponent. Spaniards celebrated with Rafael Nadal’s gold medal in tennis, a first for Spain, and cheered mightily for their participants in cycling and canoe/kayak where they had several medal winners.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin established an Olympics paradigm, motivated by lofty principles of health, education and world peace. Coubertin made sound entertainment choices as well. Coubertin's Olympic themes will resonate across the television airwaves for the next 17 days in South Korea.

Somewhere in the Olympics saga stands the increasing commercialization of the Games, dispiriting episodes of International Olympic Committee officials taking bribes, and the persistent use of illegal, performance enhancing drugs. Asian countries have indicated enthusiasm for hosting the Games despite the immense cost for any country taking on that role. Those are all discussions for another day. 

Meanwhile.... enjoy the 2018 Winter Olympic Games!

Back from Europe: Trump Puts Us On Like a Suit of Clothes

Did I learn anything from foreign travel? I gained something, more like a feeling than a set of ideas. Just being in France and Spain where the living is slightly different has a beneficial effect. Not sure why…. Maybe the electrons in your brain and body get realigned. At times I felt my stomach twisted in knots of anxiety. Sometimes I got the feeling my cellphone and Google Maps was the only thing between my health and safety and oblivion. Lose the phone and your whole existence goes down the drain immediately. Such is life. As Descartes famously said… I own a Samsung, therefore I am.

Been looking at my travels for some insight to explain modern life. The G20 summit happened soon after we returned. I recognized that late hour of sunset in Europe—the same in Hamburg, Germany as in France and Spain, around 10 PM. I felt slightly more familiar with the protesters because I had been on their continent just a few days before. They were rioting—maybe against capitalism, maybe against the system’s inability to deal with global climate change. The younger generations must fight for their air, water, the temperature of their air—a whole new set of issues from the Vietnam War demonstrations I remember. The issues have changed—maybe moved to a new level of complexity. The same technology and complexity that has made the West so rich threatens the health of the planet. Can people actually choose less wealth? Maybe but it’s quite a struggle.

Where does the Donald Trump phenomenon fit into the global angst. Trump knows something that almost nobody else has figured out. I found some clues in Marshall McLuhan’s writing—where I always look to understand the new, digital environment. 

People complain about Trump’s tweets, not realizing the tweets are Trump’s genius, his grasp of the present moment.

Trump tweeted this out on 1 July 2017, as an answer to his critics:

My use of social media is not Presidential—it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again.

5:41 PM

I agree with this tweet—the media world has changed and nobody wants to believe it. They want to kill the messenger. Trump alerts us to the new media environment—and we mistakenly focus on what we dislike about the man. Trump has no great loyalty to any policy or party. He is all about the medium.

Remember Marshall McLuhan’s great aphorism… “The medium is the message.”

The content of Trump’s tweets is not the important thing. The fact that Trump uses twitter as his governing mechanism and image builder and that we read his tweets is what matters. 

And here is what McLuhan said in his Playboy interview of 1969:

“The new political showman has to literally as well as figuratively puts on his audience as he would a suit of clothes and become a corporate tribal image—like Mussolini, Hitler and F.D.R. in the days of radio, and Jack Kennedy in the television era. All these men were tribal emperors on a scale theretofore unknown in the world, because they all mastered their media.”

European Travel: Saints, Castles, Cafes and a Mermaid

Just returned, back home to the USA, after a one month swing through France (Paris and Amboise) and Northern Spain. I got to live the life of a bourgeoisie, as they call the middle classes in France, staying at hotels and eating fabulous meals in restaurants and tapas bars. I observed a few things in my travels with my friend, and came to a few conclusions. Or let's just call them observations:

* The summer sun goes down late in Europe-- around 10:00 PM.

* The French kings built beautiful castles for their wive and mistresses-- euphemistically called chateaus. Chateau is an understatement. These amazing structures- fortified with moats and thick walls and are truly regal. We saw a few, Chenonceau and Loches. Chenoncea has an amazing history and extends across the entire width of the river Cher. Loches has the feel of the Middle Ages and rises high above the surrounding Loire Valley countryside.

* The Parisian women have great style. So many beautiful women!

* The temperature in Amboise was very comfortable and the city has great charm. The walled streets of the city come right up to the lanes and streets winding through the town. You get transported back in time.

* At the L'Alliance restaurant I had "panna cotta", a cream dessert,with blackberries and other fruits. The flavor of panna cotta verged on a religious experience for me-- maybe the best sweet food of my lifetime.

* In Spain, we started out in Barcelona. I made a good decision to join in with a tour group for the La Sagrada Familia cathedral, the life work on Antoni Gaudi-- and wrote a blog entry about the power of that experience. Gaudi is up for a sainthood, I've read.

* Our favorite hangout in Barcelona, Chicha Limona restaurant was recommended by Jose, our VRBO landlord. We became regulars and got to know the wait staff in their black-and-white checked shirts. A shout-out here to Pilar, Tomas, Julia, and Lluis-- some of the employees who treated us so well.

* Santiago de Compostela also transports you back in time. The pilgrims completing the "Camino", the walk that begins in France and crosses north Spain to the cathedral and burial place of St. James, add a strong theme to the city's identity. We loved the Costa Vella Hotel, recommended by Rick Steven, and its shaded jardin in the back. Another city of endless winding lanes with stone walled houses and apartments lining the street.

* The Mama Peixas (mother fish) restaurant in Santiago is a standout. Spanish food and especially seafood is a standout.

* Check out a town called Comillas and the north Atlantic. Spanish tourists go there, a good sign, and they have an early Gaudi building called "Capricho". Capricho is covered with sunflower tiles. And we got to see actual sunflower fields in France-- where the flowers actually pivot to follow the sun.

* The amazing city of San Sebastian features a surf beach with golden sand. The sand somehow matches the gold tones of the walls of the buildings. I loved the pounding surf, too powerful for the surf school kids to enter very far into the ocean that day.

* The Spanish women are also beautiful.

* And I had my very own Girl from Impanema experience at La Playa de San Sebastian. The surfer beach in San Sebastian is where we encountered "la sirena", the mermaid. The mermaid was dark-haired with brown skin and might even have been South American. She wore a black wetsuit with a raya azul and had swim fins. The wetsuit fit her body like a glove. Wetsuits fit everybody like a glove-- but the glove surrounding her  body was exceptional. I asked her if it was a dangerous day for body surfing. "Peligro, no?" I asked. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled with playful eyes. She seemed to to say... it goes with the territory. But her territory is actually water. No surf is too dangerous for La Sirena.

My last observation concerns European travel, especially for the American middle classes, and the impact of a guy named Rick Steves. We had Rick Steve's books for France and for Spain. Rick, it turns out, is a Lutheran from Edmonds, Washington. Somehow his passion for travel led him to become the guru of all European travelers, at least American travelers with a little bit of money. I know there more hippie style of travel from youth. Reed and I got in many conversations with fellow Americans. Usually we would be in fabulous restaurants in between beautiful entrees or tapas courses-- and the topic of Rich Steves, the traveler writer and TV travel host, would invariably come up. Rick has become the patron saint of the well-heeled traveler. I got to experience that lifestyle for a month and let's just say... it ain't bad.

El Papa Knows Best....Father Knows Best

A sitcom from the late 50s, "Father Knows Best", depicted life in America in idyllic terms. The grass was cut, the children behaved and most problems were small enough to be solved in 30 minutes, 22 minutes if you don't include the advertisements. The actor Robert Young depicted father as a gray-haired kindly man with the wisdom to keep the family on a healthy, happy course and that reflected the optimism of Post - WW II life in the United States.

What made me think of this show in the present era, a time of intense globalize, all-at-once communication was an article I read in a Spanish newspaper while on my travels in Northern Spain. My Spanish language is less than perfect, but... here's what it said. The Pope, El Papa, presiding over the mass of Corpus Christi, said (my interpretation follows) "pages move quickly and our exterior  life gets fragmented while our interior life stays inert." He added a cautionary word on the importance of memory saying with "living in the instant and we run the danger of living permanently in the superficial, in the style of the moment without understanding who we are and where we have been."

First, I apologize foe any mistake in translation. As a big fan of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian media guru, a convert to Catholicism, I got a kick out of the Pope's observations on a topic that would interest Professor McLuhan.

Listen to this quote from Janine Marchessault on page 182 of her book "Marshall McLuhan" (Sage Publications, 2005). She, explicating McLuhan, confronts the inert feeling inside of the digital generation:

"McLuhan sees the electric environment as a homeostatic system. According to Selye's theory, any physical extension is an attempt to maintain equilibrium. They regard any technological extension as an 'auto-amputation'. In the midst of the electronic environment we numb our central nervous system when it is extended 'or we will die'. The new media support an awareness of others and of social responsibility. They compel commitment and participation through their creation of Anxiety, for in 'the electric age we wear mankind as our skin'."

There's a lot there, including Selye's theory which I do not know. McLuhan stated all technology is an extension of the human body, from clothes, to hammers, to automobiles. The cellphone extends our central nervous system outward. We must numb ouselves to deflect the power of this extension. That may be what the Pope has observed?

Because Pope Francis has dared to go where no other leader seems comfortable on so many issues, including ecology and climate change, he must be applauded. Now he discusses the reality most of us choose to ignore, the way digital technology rules our every moment.

"History has become a thing of the past," as Marshall McLuhan and his colleague Edmund Carpenter, the anthropologist, so sagely warned, long before we had cellphones. They anticipated the terrible challenge of such formidable change ahead where we "wear mankind as our skin."

Pope Francis, El Papa, has stepped forward like Robert Young in the final 2-3 minutes of "Father Knows Best" with some fatherly advice. The question remains-- is any anybody paying attention? Or just going to their next text message or Facebook or Twitter post...

The Camino to Santiago de Compostela: by train (June 19)

Many travelers to the north of Spain have heard of the "Camino"-- the walk from the south of France to the city where Saint James was buried at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. This is a Catholic pilgrimage of several hundred miles or more. Some take the big walk as an expression of religious devotion; others take the journey as a personal spiritual encounter.

My friend Reed, asked me to visit Spain. He knew my mother's family has roots in Galicia and we will eventually visit her home village of Sada, a fishing town situated above Portugal. So my Camino is part tourist trip and a return to family ancestry. Instead of a walk, we took a massive 12 hour train journey, from Barcelona to Santiago. Okay, it's easier riding a comfortable train, complete with a cafe car, than traversing miles of Spanish countryside.

The Renfe train revealed very productive land for the first several hours. The many miles of cultivated land impresses me with Spain's agricultural richness. Believe it or not, I visited Spain in 1963 as a 14 year old. Okay, so I'm older than you! My Aunt Carmen took mt to Espana to expose an American teenage kid to our family's homeland. We started in the south. We saw arid land and beautiful orchards of olive trees with shimmering leaves of silver. The cork trees really shocked me. The bark had been carved out, to make corks, I guess, for wine bottles. The trees survived despite have big square blocks carved out of their sides. We saw Malaga, Sevilla, Córdoba and Granada. Spain seemed more isolated in 1963. Nobody spoke much English. Times have changed. The average  storekeeper or citizen in the street now chatters away in English before "puedo hablar ni una palabra."

I went to Galicia in 1963 and spent a month here. I come back an older person and to the nueva Espana. I'm glad Spain has gone through all these changes. Maybe when We get further into Galicia, to A Coruna, Vigo, Orense, Vigo, Lugo and Pontevedra and Sada, of course, I will get to try out my rusty, high school Spanish. Galicia is green, with rolling hills, a bit of Irish greenery at the top of Spain. I love the orange tiles on the roofs of the homes. Tomorrow we will be by the seaside, the Atlantic Ocean crossed by my grandfather Juan Lopez and his wife, maiden name-- Dolores Garcia Tie. I've heard the stories from my mother Beatriz and my aunts Carmen and Dolores. Now I get to walk the streets of the town-- my own personal Camino.

TV Guide 2/6/60-- Globalism Begins

Richard Boone, star of Have Gun, Will Travel, appears on the cover of the February 6, 1960 issue of TV Guide but the words on the cover implore readers to "Name Your Favorite Stars and Shows." The cover also directs reader to page 5 of the pint-sized magazine-- for accessing the TV Guide Awards Nominating Ballot. Turn to page 5, and there are 7 categories--

1) Favorite half-hour series
2) Favorite one-hour-or-longer series
3) Best single dramatic program
4) Best single musical or variety program
5) Best news or information program
6) Most popular male personality
7) Most popular female personality

Readers are asked to cut along the dotted line and mail their choices to a TV Guide post office box in Philadelphia.

And so began the electronic age where the audience participates in a very active way in the creative process. Today things are easier; we can text our votes for winners on American Idol.

Read Marshall McLuhan, the media philosopher, to sate any curiosity about the notion of electronic media as participatory. And watch yourself studying the contents of your cellphone and pressing the buttons for confirmation of McLuhan's insights.

The magazine's first article, "Lions Can't Lose and They Hate Lucy," appears just after the nominations ballot and highlights the international flavor of television. Saudi Arabia had a major problem with I Love Lucy as the strong-willed Lucille Ball was perceived by the Saudis, perhaps correctly, as dominating husband Desi Arnaz. I Love Lucy was forbidden in Saudi Arabia.

The article mentions several other nations. The Japanese were comfortable with post-WW II shows like Air Power, Navy Log depicting the Japanese defeat in World War II but a Japanese sponsor didn't like nature shows showing a lion being shot, reason being the Japanese sponsor "Dr. Lion's Tooth Paste" preferred not to see the lion defeated in any form or fashion. Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator rejected Gunsmoke for the Cuban audience, as the dictator feared the show's gun play might encourage a revolution. And American television companies rejected Spain's currency, the peseta, as payment for television product. They wanted dollars.  The more things change...

Richard Boone had praise for directors of series Westerns, including a guy named Gene Rodenberry, though cowboy shows were considered inferior to the high art dramatic shows of the time, including Playhouse 90. Here's Boone's comment:

"There's a kind of snobbery," says Boone, "in live TV that carries with it the implication of pure art. Why? I don't know. All I know is that as far as I'm concerned Have Gun is better produced, better written and better directed than-- that thing."

Seems to me, Boone won that argument. Live TV dramas leave something to be desired and have largely fallen by the wayside.

Jack Paar's show was going strong every evening at 11:00 PM airtime in Austin, Texas. Jack's guests that week included Phyllis Dyller, Charley Weaver, and "singer Florence Henderson of the Today  show." Steve Allen had a program on the schedule for Monday night, 9:00 PM, showing the Tonight Show host had already shifted from Steve Allen to Jack Paar.

And ABC's Friday night Boxing featured Emile Griffith in a welterweight bout against Gaspar Ortega from Tijuana, Mexico. "This is the TV debut of Griffith, 1958 National Golden Gloves champion." A little more than a year later Emile Griffith fought and killed Benny "Kid" Paret in a controversial match that led to the cancellation of the ABC's boxing program.

Boxing popularity on television has fallen off since those early days of the medium, mainly become a niche sport, and McLuhan explained that a hot war, like Vietnam, does not work well with a cool medium like television. We participate, interact intimately with the TV flow of electrons. Such intimacy makes war, and possibly a boxing match, too hot for handling by our central nervous system.