Raebert’s all grumpy this morning. As am I. Chalk it up to Monday morning blues.

I didn’t watch a single minute of the Masters Tournament. No Tiger. The only sporting event we followed this weekend was Penn baseball, because Lady Laird had an intern who is the Babe Ruth of the Ivy League, a power pitcher last year who developed arm trouble and is now a power hitter at first base.

Still too young to be president.

I didn’t watch a single minute of Sunday morning news programming. I didn’t want to meet the press, face the nation, or endure another edition of Chris Wallace outsmarting himself in his vain attempts to be even-handed in dealing with the most criminal presidential administration in American history.

I’m going to do a post about the Steven Colbert flap, because there are times when I have to indulge my penchant for getting deep down mean with the presumptive cognoscenti, and this is an opportunity too ripe to be missed.

But I’m NOT going to do a post about the presidential prospects of Jeb Bush, because some notions really are beneath contempt. The DC punditocracy is a joke so superannuated as to be funny no more. They want Jeb. Nobody else does. Trust me.

Still, I can use Jeb as a jumping off point for the real purpose of this post. The Republican establishment pines for Jeb because they believe the Dems will nominate Hillary in 2016, and they fear what the MSM will do to any Republican newboy who rises up to oppose her. They’d prefer a clash of dynasties to any real referendum on the nation’s direction. Probably because they mostly agree that that direction is a downward spiral nobody can stop. Meaning, Jeb serves as a dignifying fig leaf for their otherwise exposed impotence.

It’s the Chris Christie Effect. He was supposed to be the new Teflon Don, immune to the machinations of the MSM because he was so blunt and plain-spoken and all. They were wrong about that. The MSM killed him off with a simple traffic jam. Quick work. Just imagine what would happen to the lineup of sad-sack Republican governors who are hemming and hawing about putting their own hats in the ring. It’s obviously time to default to dynasties.

Not so fast. Time to ask what they really want from a Jeb candidacy. Ready-made name recognition. Can’t be slaughtered by Dem revelations of who he really is and where he came from. All the MSM ammunition against the Bushes has already been fired, repeatedly, for years, and further attacks on the name of Bush will produce no more than a huge yawn from the electorate.

They crane their necks in all directions and can’t anywhere find a candidate the Great Unwashed already know, at least by surname, and who can’t be easily destroyed by a well orchestrated campaign of slander, libel, and vicious lies. Understandable. It’s just that they missed one. Somebody so obvious that they couldn’t see him at all because they’ve spent so much time looking past and around him.

It’s the Trump card. Name recognition. Have you seen all those quasi-comedic man in the street interviews where people who look like regular people can’t name the Vice President, tell you how many senators there are, or guess what century the Constitution was written in? But they know who’s screwing Kim Kardashian at the moment. And they know who Donald Trump is. He’s the rich guy that fires people.

Hmmmm. A rich guy who fires people. Rich isn’t a problem. Everyone who gets a presidential nomination is rich. And fires people is an outstanding credential in a time when the government does nothing but screw up and nobody ever gets fired. The man in the street could get behind a guy like that. Call it the Reality Show Effect.

But wait till the MSM goes after him! Uh, no. They already have, ruthlessly, systematically, maliciously, for years. Trump is a beneficiary of what we could call the Biden Effect. It has long ceased to matter what dumb thing he said yesterday. He’s like Ol’ Man River. He just keeps rolling along.

He has the built in invulnerability of a reality show. His comb-over may be ridiculous but, hey, he’s famous and he fires people. When the MSM and the DNC go digging for scandals, they will find them, I suppose, but the electoral response will be yawns. We know this guy, he’s entertaining, and he fires people. No wonder there are people willing to say bad things about him. He fires people.

They can’t get him on a sex scandal either. Call it the Clinton Effect. Everybody knows Donald Trump is in the business of trophy wives and probably trophy mistresses too. Why should we care? Every bit of salacious gossip just buffs his reality show shine.

More than that, even the man in the street knows other things about him. He has a talent for winning. He makes deals. He bends other people to his will. He knows how to run things. He knows how to make a profit. He generates jobs. Who hasn’t been to a Trump casino? All the people who work there have jobs.

And, finally, he also benefits somewhat ironically from the Obama Effect. He has no legislative record that can be used to vet or destroy him. Although, unlike Obama, he has a long and very public record of accomplishment. He evidently fears no one. Not even Hillary. To him, she’s just another frail who would never have made his trophy wife cut.

Too rich to be prey to lobbyists. Too much of a loose cannon to toe any party line. Too loud to be cowed by anyone else’s bluster. It just might be that this is his time. Call it the Trump Effect. Sometimes, the times demand someone who is larger than life.

I’m older now. My cane. Same lovable optimist I’ve always been.

So Edna sent me an email asking if I remember writing this. Are you psychic, she asked. Well, I do remember. The excerpt is from 1997, an entry in a journal I typed to myself in Word 97, close to two decades ago, before I even had access to the Internet.

‘And what about the day when your medical insurance goes up because you bought a pound of bacon at the supermarket?’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick, ‘we can hit up the red meat pushers for a few hundred billion, I’ll bet. All that colon cancer. Somebody has to pay.’

‘Who would ever have thought that the government’s desire to help people with their medical bills would lead to state ownership of your body? Because that’s the truth of it. The motorcyclists who oppose helmet laws can’t use the argument that it’s their own business whether they get a head injury or not. Not anymore. Now it’s ‘the peoples’ business because it’s ‘the people’ who are paying the hospital bill. And they’ve been making the same kind of argument about smokers, suggesting that anyone who smokes shouldn’t get insurance coverage for smoking-related diseases. Think about that. The government takes over the health care business. Then they set about denying coverage to everyone for exactly the ailments they’re most prone to get. So maybe fat people won’t get coverage for heart disease. Drinkers can’t be allowed coverage for liver disease. Women who won’t drink their milk can’t be covered for osteoporosis. They have the right to tell you how to live.’

‘Your body is a federal asset,’ Patrick said. ‘It has to be maintained so that it can keep working, which is to say generating the tax revenues that are needed to pay off that $15 trillion national debt. If you get sick and die of something like lung cancer, you’ve cheated them out of their money. What chance does the Fourth Amendment have when the government’s got to come up with $15 trillion? Sorry, we own your lungs just like we own your house and your children.’

‘So the only part of the human body anyone owns anymore is the uterus, which just happens to be the only part on which somebody else might have a legitimate claim.’

Patrick laughed. ‘Right. The last and only corner of the world still protected by the Fourth Amendment.’

We discussed the irony, as we had before, but I have been developing for some time a perspective that might explain or even eliminate the irony. I didn’t get into it tonight, though, because it’s a big subject and will take hours, maybe days, to explore.

The answer to her question. No, I’m not a psychic. All this stuff has been a long time building. It’s my misfortune, I suppose, that I was paying attention the whole time.

Believe it or not, a fine one season and done series.

A WordPress problem I don’t know how to address. New comments on really old posts. I know there’s a listing in the left hand column of recent comments, but it’s way down there where you won’t find it unless you look for it. Look for it. My best advice.

Still. Tim finally got around to registering on my post about Orphan Black.

He likes it. He really likes it. Which reminds me that it’s been a while since I recommended, uh, quality programming from the Netflix streaming world. How about we do that?

The Chicago Code

I knew that after Flashdance Jennifer Beals went to Yale to learn something about acting. Didn’t know that she actually attended the classes. She did. She’s good in this, but she’s by no means the best of an excellent cast and a truly WTF series premise which I still can’t believe made it on the air in 2011. The City of Chicago is, you see, utterly and completely corrupt. Beals is the new Police Superintendant, hand-picked by the alderman (Delroy Lindo) she believes to be the most corrupt politician/gangster in Chicago. So she goes to war against him. The show lasted a year. Can’t believe it went more than four episodes, given the origins of our Commander-in-Chief. There’s even an episode with an obvious stand-in for Bill Ayers, whose bomber-radical past catches up with him in an ugly way. When it was on TV I mostly missed it, on too late or I was too skeptical of the Beals acting resume, I don’t know. But I tentatively suggested giving it a try on Netflix to my wife, who just absolutely loves it.

Beals has matured into a good actress. Delroy Lindo plays the villain with subtle reptilian charm. The star, though, is an Aussie actor Lady Laird has a considerable crush on: Jason Clarke. He is, in the filthy context of Chicago chiselers and cheats and murderous punks, Sir Lancelot. Which sounds ridiculous but isn’t because he makes it work. Cynical, seen and heard it all, can’t be fooled and can’t be stopped when he’s sighted his quarry, Clarke is mesmerizing as the cop we all hope will rescue us or avenge us.

He drinks himself to sleep every night, but he won’t stand for obscene language in the patrol car.

Loyal fans fought hard against the cancellation, which Fox continues to insist was ratings driven. Maybe it was. The city is also a main character in the series. It must have been very expensive to produce. But its 13 episodes are handsome, frenetically paced, and fearless in addressing even such politically incorrect targets as urban subcultures that have lost the ability to distinguish between decency and decadent self aggrandizement, somehow thinking that whatever bad they do is somehow owed them due to past injustices.

My wife is tired of hearing me exclaim, “How was this ever on the air on a major TV network? Impossible!”

Okay. I was going to talk about a bunch of other shows too, but I ran way long on this one. Give it a look. You’ll be shocked, I think.

And Jennifer Beals is still hot with the addition of crows feet and a bulletproof vest.

Yeah, she is. Hotter than before.

Is this Sylvia Burwell?

Or is this? Or vice versa?

Okay. I’m confused. I admit it when I am. One of the ladies above is the new nominee for Secretary of Health & Human Services. The other is a trans-gender teacher who is presently fighting for his/her public school job. You know. I was working on two posts and then I lost track. Sorry.

Anyhow, whichever one is Sylvia, the most up to date news about his/her credentials comes to us from National Review:

Obama’s Next HHS Secretary Doesn’t Really Have Health-Care Experience

Sylvia Burwell, whom President Obama is expected to nominate to replace Kathleen Sebelius as the secretary of health and human services, has a long professional career in business and consulting, but lacks substantial professional or political experience with health care.

Her résumé​, according to Dan Diamond of the Advisory Board, only includes a stint as a board member at the University of Washington Medical Center. “Burwell’s track record in health care is not well-established,” Diamond writes in a briefing for the Advisory Board, a health-care consulting firm.

Her predecessor, Secretary Sebelius, served as Kansas state insurance commissioner for eight years, giving her control over, for instance, regulating health insurers and approving or rejecting the premiums they set.

Burwell’s private-sector experience has been with McKinsey, where she did consulting for financial services firms, and the Gates and Walmart Foundations, where she held executive positions. In the public sector, she’s worked on the budget and economics side of things, working for the National Economic Council in the Clinton White House and, most recently, running the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget…

I’m sure he or she will be every bit as effective as his/her predecessor, who closed out his/her own tenure very appropriately, with a final stupid lie.

Sebelius Two Weeks Ago: ‘I’m in’ for ‘Round 2’ of Obamacare

Obama said he’d heard of the secretary’s intention to leave in early March. Maybe untruth is the newest form of addiction. Maybe we need billions for a new kind of rehab program.

Just remembered I failed to put Scottish music in my Top 100 list. Not even AC/DC. Bad Robert.

Does this explain Raebert’s curiously defensive posture of the past few days?

Talk to the toys. If you don’t have Cheetos or pizza crust, I have nothing to say.

Wouldn’t put it past him. At this point, wouldn’t put anything past him.

Oh. Is that better then?

Ya know? Ya don’t know much, do you?

All right, Rae. No more helicopters. Just the straight Scottish stuff. They killed his wife. Then he killed them. This is the actual footage. Why it’s so jumpy and grainy and washed out. A chance to get in touch with your heroic past as the noblest of all dogs.

Unfortunately, the medieval cameraman filming the event got decapitated just before William Wallace slaughtered the man who murdered Murron. Are we good now?

Sure. I just have one other thing to do first.

Raebert. Stop it. Come away from there. You’re making us look bad.

“Rae, they’re mannequins.” “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up with the Scottish stuff later, I promise.”

Thinking you’re already way caught up with the Scottish stuff, Rae. Lie down.

LIE DOWN!

Why do they make us yell at them?

In her comment on the previous post, Alfa turns Mack the Knife into an Old World reminiscence. Nonsense. It’s all about Sinatra and Bobby Darin. Except that she’s right.

Kurt Weil. Lotte Lenya.

Live and learn. Note that Alfa still hasn’t given us her Top 100. Too good for us? Guess so.

Unintended consequences. Who knew the Top 100 would result in more just plain fun than we’ve had here in a long time? Actual cultural commentary? Fabulous.

The video above is a contribution of Edna. Because everyone knows that women aren’t competitive as hell and have no sense of humor. Besides not having as much talent as the, uh, men.

And speaking of the, uh, men, in virtually the same timeframe, commenter Tim sent me this musical paean to NHL star Sidnie Crosby, whom the doyennes of ESPN regard as the face of the league, perhaps of hockey itself.

Role reversal anyone? Love it. Perhaps Tim will forgive me for revealing that he — a rabid Washington Capitals fan and inveterate Flyers hater — is actually going to be rooting for the Flyers in the Stanley Cup playoffs when they face off against Crosby’s Penguins.

I appreciate that. I really do. But I’m rather wishing that the Competitive Foursome had one more defenseman and a goalie to go with their extraordinary offensive lineup.

Thanks to both of you. In these dark days, laughs are hard to come by. And you’ll have to excuse me for finishing on a lame note, because I’m still trying to wipe a tear from my eye under the influence of Canadian torch singer Celine Dion, which is really really hard to do while wearing a hockey glove.

No, not these…! (Actually I’ve never been to one of their restaurants even one time.)

Couldn’t resist the joke. I was talking about these Hooters.

The Hooters – All You Zombies (1983) from Flavio Gnoni (-:ENJOYAUDIO:-) on Vimeo.

They were a good band from Philly in the early eighties. As with some other things, it would seem their time might have come round again. Zombies are everywhere of late. Not to mention, uh, Noah!

Might also want to look up Nervous Nights, Day by Day, And We Danced, and Where Do the Children Go?

A Face in the Crowd Trailer from BiteSize TV on Vimeo.

An old movie that is again relevant. Funny how that works. It’s historically significant on multiple levels. It’s the movie that made Andy Griffith a star. He plays a character as dark and complex as the preacher Robert Mitchum played in Night of the Hunter. For all of Griffith’s later success, he would never again show off such prodigious acting skills.

Of course, he had the benefit of the direction of Elia Kazan, three years after the masterpiece that was On the Waterfront, and more years into the descending cloud of lefty opprobrium for his testimony against communists in the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. More about Kazan’s possible motives later.

At the time, though, it was considered something of a variation on Citizen Kane, a fictional take on the career of the biggest media superstar of the day, a radio and television host named Arthur Godfrey, who was at one point regarded as the most famous man in America. It was thus, apart from its other interpretations, one of the very first explorations of the impacts and perils of mass media celebrity as a force unhooked from actual achievement.

Like the protagonist of A Face in the Crowd, Godfrey was ultimately laid low by exposure of the contrast between his aw shucks demeanor and his real personality.

I watched it again last night after a long long time of not needing to see it again. It proved something of a revelation in terms of our current cultural and political climate.

The Griffith character is discovered by an ambitious radio host (Patricia Neal, the only woman who could ever have played Dagny Taggart) in the drunk tank of a rural Arkansas jail. He can sing and play the guitar, but his talent at that can’t hold a candle to his instinct for spotting an opportunity to make a score. He’s pure psychopath, incredibly quick to read everyone else’s motivations and vulnerabilities. He’s also a born down-home charmer. The Pat Neal character dubs him “Lonesome Rhodes” and plucks him from nothing to celebrity.

The movie charts his rise from guest talent on an Arkansas radio show to national radio and TV megastar. As I watched I began to understand the dumb-smart traps that killed Elia Kazan’s life and career. Which are some of the same dumb-smart traps that make contemporary progressives so ridiculous and dangerous.

I don’t want to ascribe TOO much vision to Kazan, but I do think he’s grappling with conflicting intentions in this production. He wants both to explain why he was tempted by communism in the first place and why there are times when you break accepted moral codes to bring down a clear and present danger. And I think he wanted to be forgiven; why he made the threat of Lonesome Rhodes into a right wing populist in thrall to evil Republican politicians and crony capitalists.

Given Kazan’s own history, the plot is all over the place. Yet he manages to fight through his own complicated situation to arrive at some brand new insights about the impact of pervasive media. He seems prescient in demonstrating the now accepted truism that all publicity is good publicity. Lonesome openly mocks the product of his show’s main sponsor, which increases sales. He soon becomes a political consultant for a senator who desires to be president. “They don’t need to respect you,” he lectures. “They need to loooove you.”

Patricia Neal and her intellectual admirer Walter Matthau are stand-ins for Kazan himself. Neal the one in love with the romantic illusion of a beast she cannot bring herself to see whole. Matthau the timid intellect that suppresses its doubts and conspires in the fraud until he can no longer stomach the monstrosity of its nature.

There is this kind of duality, even splitting of viewpoints, throughout. Lonesome Rhodes knows he’s a bad man. He just can’t help taking advantage when the evil and weaknesses of others open doors to him. He responds to the virtue of Neal. He despises the gutlessness of Matthau. He is begging to be stopped. But he can also envision the possibility of becoming president himself one day. Which would mean all the drink and pussy any man could ever hope for.

But there is also a bottom line I’m pretty sure Elia Kazan never gave much thought to. The bedrock cultural assumption of the movie is that the vast numbers of people Lonesome Rhodes appealed to were stupid, ignorant, gullible dross. In the end it was the danger of firing them up — against plainly fine policies like Social Security — that required the smart if diffident heroes to bring him down by fair means or foul.

I’m sure Elia Kazan thought this was a no brainer. It’s why he became a member of the American Communist Party in the first place. The idea was never to put the proletariat in charge. It was to protect the proletariat from their own misguided beliefs.

So, as I watched the portrayal of a flyover country populist as a stone psychopath, I thought of phrases like “bitter clingers” and “tea bagger racists.” I understood why they hate Rush Limbaugh so much and with so much self-congratulating superiority even though they have never listened to his show. He’s just Lonesome Rhodes all over again. The smart progressives among us love the people, all right; they just can’t stand to be close enough to smell them.

1957. That’s how long the smart, highly educated, beneficent ones have been condescending to the rest of us. They learned the media trick early. Why they have lost all their reluctance to lie about everything all the time. It’s for our own good.

Do you start to see?

I have some dire posts to do later on, but here’s a vaccine against despair. New York’s police department played the fire department last night, and they had a huge brawl on the ice. Cool.

I got to see their annual football game last fall. They narrowly escaped a similar brawl there but only because the refs refused to penalize the police department for brandishing sidearms during their game ending goal line stand.

Apparently, the wussification of America hasn’t succeeded completely yet. Grin.

Bear that in mind as I get apocalyptic later.

OLD BUSINESS. Thanks to the computer savvy and devotion of my lovely fiancée, the mysterious recording of Save the Last Dance for Me has been identified. It charted at No. 18 in 1974, exactly the right timeframe. I had it all correct as to the tempo and the single-word effect of the key lyrics. What I had wrong was the sex of the singer. Not a Brenda Lee type woman but a 14 year old boy. What did I know? It was a label in a jukebox. Everybody in upstate New York played it constantly, from bikers to B-school partiers. Imagine the booming J-box sound and the girls dancing next to the pool table in the yellow unlight of a Trumansburg bar in winter.

Maybe you had to be there.