"The news cycle is getting shorter --- to the point that there is no pause, only the constancy of the Web and the endless argument of cable. 
This creates pressure to entertain or perish, which has fed the press’s dominant bias: not pro-liberal or pro-conservative but pro-conflict." 
--- Ken Auletta in The New Yorker

Late Night, Part the Second

Leno appeared on Oprah's show yesterday and did himself no favors. Just when you thought he reached rock bottom in terms of ethics, Jay decided to break out the blasting caps to get a little deeper.

25 January 2010

Drove my middle brother (not the one who is deploying... FYI, I am the youngest) into the capital region today for an appointment. Have been doing this semi-regularly since this past summer when he came down with a serious variant of Lyme disease. Have no desire to talk about it in detail here, as the particulars are his private concern that I will not discuss on a publicly-accessible forum. He often advocates for Lyme Awareness among family and a wide circle of friends, so this is not a public "outing" by any means.

Today, as a change, we took his Jeep Commander and my 2-year-old niece. His wife, who usually drives said vehicle to work and drops said niece at day care, is at a training activity down South. Woke up at 6:30 to get over there and get my nephew on the bus and basically act as another pair of hands. Watched "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" on DVD, which was surprisingly entertaining on this, my first viewing; evidently, this movie gets much airtime at the house, as many of the lines can be recited by heart. That's the way kids are. Then again, who am I to say anything? --- I've watched "LOST" about eight times over, myself.

Anyway, it was an experience driving today. I'm no stranger to Jeeps, but the Commander model is quite a beast to handle, both in terms of the weight, power and its bulkiness. Kind of like steering a tugboat. And at time today, that simile probably wasn't far off from the truth. It was horrible weather, with 1"-2" of driving rain and 50+ m.p.h. wind gusts. But we made it there and back again, without incident. My niece slept in her car-seat most of the way.

Got home and made a batch of soup that couldn't be beat, and took it over, along with some garlic bread, for the whole family's dinner. And, now, dear reader, I am fairly beat. Honestly, I have done stone wall work for 12 hours a day and not felt this tired. I seriously don't know how so many parents do this day in and day out. ... If I ever talk about having kids, please shoot me with a big gun. The largest you can find.

The Gailey Administration

This week, the Buffalo Bills hired Chan Gailey as their head coach after a protracted search.

I am officially overwhelmingly ambivalent about this. Gailey has had some success in the NFL, reaching the playoffs frequently with teams he has coached in various capacities.

After a decade of missing the playoffs, the Bills have a lot of things to improve on. Frankly, my interest has waned to the point that I didn't watch many of the games this year, because the outcomes were inevitable. More productive to go outside and actually do something on a Sunday.

We'll see what kind of changes this brings and if there's a real sense of improvement rather than the pure ticket-sale marketing hype that's surrounded the team for 10 years of failure.

Late Night

It's been in the offing for a couple-few weeks now that Conan O'Brien would be canceled after 7 months at the "Tonight Show" and that slot will be given back to Jay Leno.

Admittedly, I watched about 10 minutes of late night television in the past year, but I've caught parts of Conan's show since the mess started. It helps comedy when there's an edge to it, and it especially helps the absurdity factor when the person can spout against his own bosses and the network ('What're they gonna do, fire me!?!'), and it'll still be aired.

In the time he's been there, Conan struggled to find his audience. Then again, Leno's 10 p.m. show was a complete flop, and had NBC affiliates steamed at the low lead-in numbers for their 11 p.m. newscasts. Now, as it turns out, Conan has gotten big viewership ratings on "Tonight" during this period of limbo. NBC has handled their late night programming badly since Johnny Carson retired. No need to go into the Leno-Letterman fiasco here. The switch from Leno to Conan worked out on paper in 2005 was equally as ill-conceived. Come the time of the transition, NBC refused to accept that it would be losing one of the two to a rival network. They delayed it as long as they could.

Who's the bad guy here? Certainly NBC's executives play a big part. By the numbers, Conan couldn't keep or attract the audience, but to yank him off-stage so soon wasn't right. Especially when his predecessor usurped the late night milieu and put it on over an hour earlier on the same network. Not cool, NBC! Wherever Conan lands next --- likely FOX or even ABC in September when the terms of his settlement with NBC allow him --- he will bring a significant amount of viewer goodwill.

Leno isn't going to come out of all this as rosy as he'd like. He and NBC are surmising that his previous "Tonight Show" numbers will jump right back up to where they were prior to his so-called retirement. I highly doubt this happens. Leno has lost a lot of the goodwill he had; many celebrities on whom he relies to appear with him aren't taking a favorable tack to his scheming. "Tonight" to an extent, will be blackballed. Leno should have done the honorable thing and declined NBC's offers --- both to create the 10 p.m. show and to take back "Tonight." He should not have been the third wheel when his contract expired. As it was, Leno was the guy who got his gold watch and retirement party, then hung around in the lobby shaking hands and filling orders like nothing had changed. Leno is the common denominator in the late night feuds. Vouchsafe there's a lot of scheming going on behind the stale laughs.

(Photo illustration (c) Mike Mitchell)

"The only reason that anything ever gets done 
is because there are pockets of competence in every command. 
The key is to find them ... and then exploit the hell out of 'em." 

--- Unidentified U.S. CENTCOM Commander

Whalers Retro

When the Hartford Whalers left town in 1997, it was the end of an era in hockey. The NHL had become a league of "dump and trap" that wouldn't abate until after a season-long work stoppage and badly needed rules changes. In 2004, those changes finally came, opening up the playing surface by removing the center-ice red line (thus reducing two-line pass penalties), giving a competitive advantage to teams and players with speed and skating ability. They have also gotten games out of the 1-0 or 2-1 rut, and the most important occurence of a game is no longer, "Who got in a fight?" We can now look back on those days with a certain sentimentality. But for Whalers fans, those days are all that's left. Still, though, there are many Whalers fans left in Connecticut.

Recently, I ran into the drawing at left, which provides a glimpse at the Whalers' logo design process. The artist who was commissioned for the design was Peter Good, now of Cummings & Good, a graphic design partnership. It's always fascinating (for me at least) to see this idea flow from one concept to the next. Here, the initial stages show an intent to include a negative-space H (for Hartford) to pair with the Whalers W. The design progresses from Poseidon-like hook shapes to a whale fluke. It is still lauded in the logo design community as one of the best designs out there.