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Stumpage Reports
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Saturday, January 18, 2003 :::
Based on what I did today, I had several choices about what I could blog about:
1) The two hours I spent at work arranging the correspondence of the NC Forestry Foundation.
2) Chatting online with Ed the Pope Killer and Bookpimp
3) Reading the writings of the Anti-Federalist Farmer
4) Typing up twelve pages of notes for my Constitutional History Class
5) Watching VH1's 100 Greatest Moments That Rocked TV and talk shit about Michael Jackson
By the overwhelming vote of my six readers, the answer is 5) Watching VH1's 100 Greatest Moments That Rocked TV and talk shit about Michael Jackson
I tuned in around #12 or so, and immediately started wondering what would be #1. The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show seemed an obvious #1 pick to me, but I also considered the debut of MTV and Elvis' 1968 TV Special. Imagine my chagrin when these choices rolled in at numbers 3, 4, and 5. What could possibly be left I wondered. Surely Public Image Limited's appearance on American Bandstand didn't rate that high. Chagrin passed and disgust ensued when Michael Jackson's moonwalk at some motown tv show and Bill Clinton playing the sax on the Arsenio Hall Show came in at numbers 2 and 1.
They showed different people commenting on the events, and concerning the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Eric Idle said "People will still be talking about that 100 years from now." I agree wholeheartedly. I really think unless he gets caught killing people or dies in a spectacular manner, in 100 years no one will know who in the hell Michael Jackson was. (You might could say the same for Clinton). He'll be one of those things that was incredibly popular at one moment in time but will have no lasting impact in the grand scheme of things. Kind of like if you read contemporary reviews of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, everyone compared it unfavorably to a book by Michael Arlen called The Green Hat. That was some incredibly popular book in the early 1920's that no one reads anymore.
It was fun to see again John Belushi mimicking Joe Cocker on Saturday Night Live. Public Image Limited wreaking havoc on American Bandstand was a lame # 96. The best I could tell, the musical moment that freaked me out more than almost anything I'd seen on television, Devo's first appearance on Saturday Night Live, didn't even make the damn list.
Quote of the Day:
This has been quoted a zillion times, but I think it bears repeating. I hardly watched any TV news all week and watched some yesterday and today and got really pissed about George Bush's attempts to get reelected by bombing brown people. So, here is poet Wilfred Owen describing a victim of a poison gas attack:
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing on his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues --
My friend, you would not tell with such high jest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*
*It is sweet to die for one's country.
--- Wilfred Owen, Dulce Et Decorum Est
::: posted by tom at 8:36 PM
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