Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me: Near perfection, but not quite

For years, I argued that I had brought more joy to my wife’s world than she had brought to mine. I have introduced Elysha to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica, two of her favorite television shows of all time.

I tantalized her palette with the sublimity of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs.

I took her to her first NFL and Major League baseball games, as well as her first foray into go-carting.

I had given her the world.

Then it occurred to me the other day that it was Elysha who first convinced me to listen to NPR’s Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me! even after I scoffed at the idea of listening to a game show again and again.

Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me is just as sublime as macaroni and cheese with hot dogs.

It’s almost perfect.

My main complaint about the program (other than Carl Castle’s annoying use of the word outright) is the final “Prediction” segment of the show, when the three celebrity panelists are asked to come up with a joke pertaining to a topic addressed earlier in the show.

Except when listening with Elysha, I never listen to this final segment, because in comparison with the rest of the show, it is consistently the weakest in terms of humor and wit. Yet it serves as the conclusion to the show, leaving listeners on a low note week after week.

Not to mention that the game has already ended, a winner has been declared, and congratulatory applause has been rendered.

This is when games are supposed to end.

At the end.

I realize that the panelists are only playing for pride, but within the architecture and artifice of the show, the declaration of victory should represent the completion of the show. There is no reason for the winner and the two losers to then be required to come up with one more bit of witty humor to end the program.

It was already over.

It’s a flaw, Peter Segal. It needs to be fixed.

Thankfully, I listen to the show in podcast form and simply press the stop button during the winner’s applause.

He makes a fine, fine point

Talk Soup: A solution to my cultural blindness?

In the past three days, I have failed to understand cultural references related to a celebrity chef, a Kardashian  person (made from someone old enough to be my father), and (I think) the woman engaged to Prince I–Still-Don’t-Know-His-Name. While watching 30 Rock last night (two episodes on DVD), I counted at least three jokes that zoomed over my head when the cultural references required to laugh at these jokes were unknown to me.

And on Thanksgiving, I found myself watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade with Clara and not knowing most of the celebrities perched atop the corporate floats.

This is an issue I have written about before.

And before that.

And yet I still have not decided the degree to which I am concerned about this trend. I know it sounds a little silly, but as an author, I don’t want to become entirely detached from pop culture. There’s too much investment in movies, television and celebrities by readers and the general public to just ignore these things, and I don’t want my future books to become entirely devoid of any necessary pop culture references.

I’d also very much like to avoid becoming the cranky old man who thinks that the last great movies were made by Jerry Lewis and Rita Hayworth.  You know the guy. The one who longs for the days of The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy and cannot understand why there is so much sex on television today.

I don’t want to be that guy.

And frankly, I’d like to feel a little less lost when discussions related to pop culture arise.

Yet at the same time I do not want to turn my attention back to television to the degree seemingly required to keep up on these things.

I don’t want to watch American Idol or its various dancing incarnations. I care nothing for the latest police procedural or the latest reality show nonsense. I don’t care about royal weddings and never will. I have no desire to watch people cook dinner or talk about cooking dinner. And I don’t want to watch a news program that would report on a Kardashian person as if he or she were a legitimate new story.

I was whining about this conundrum over the weekend when someone recommended I watch a television show called Talk Soup in order to keep up on the latest goings-on. Thirty minutes, I was promised, would be more than enough to keep me in the know.

I have never seen this show and get the sense that I may require a shower after watching it, but perhaps this is a solution.

Thoughts?

Slightly disingenuous but outstanding nonetheless

Not everything that is stated in the first commercial is entirely true, but I thought both of these GM commercials were excellent. 

Two of the most effective of the year, though admittedly I only see commercials that air during sporting events. 

For the first time in a long time, I felt a little bit of pride in an American car company.

Better than some actual SNL episodes

Would I still think this is brilliant if I didn’t spend about ten minutes every morning watching Sesame Street with my daughter?

I think so.

Cookie Monster hosts SNL

Defeated by the elderly

In a follow-up to the post about my lack of cultural awareness comes this evening’s revelation that my wife’s 88-year-old grandmother is more culturally aware than either one of us. 

On our way home from dinner, she began discussing the television show Two and a Half Men, mentioning that the lead actor ran into some trouble this week.   

Apparently he was prominently featured in the news for an alcoholic tirade in a hotel room.

I did not know who the lead actor was, and neither my wife nor I knew anything about the trouble that he had gotten into this week. 

Adding insult to injury, apparently this television show has been on the air for about a decade and my wife and I know nothing about it. 

Again, I ask:

Should we be watching a little more television if only to be aware enough to remain in the mainstream conversation?

When an 88-year-old is more culturally aware than me, I start to wonder.

I don’t know who Snooky is or if Lady Gaga wore a meat dress, but I’m probably happier than you.

My wife and I do not watch very much television. Last night, for example, I watched the fourth quarter of the Celtics game.  Otherwise the television did not go on.

The night before that, the television did not go on.

On Sunday, I watched the Patriots-Vikings game and parts of the Jet-Packers game, but otherwise the television did not go on.  And had it not been Halloween, I would have been at the Patriots game rather than watching it on television.

When my wife and I do watch television, we tend to watch one show at a time on DVD, plus a smattering of regularly scheduled programming. For example, we just finished watching the second season of Breaking Bad on DVD, and we currently watch The Office and Community, two half-hour comedies, which air on Thursday nights.

We were watching Project Runway as well, but that show has since ended.

There are no other television shows in our current schedule, though I just began recording AMC’s The Walking Dead in hopes that it’s as good as the critics claim.

As a whole, I’m happy with our limited television viewing.  It has given me to the time to write, to read, to play with Clara and to occupy my time with things other than television.

However, I’ve started noticed that I am beginning to fall behind in terms of popular culture, and references that I may have once understood are now impenetrable to me.

Just this weekend, I heard the following things that made little to no sense to me:

Someone on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me made a joke about a show called The Cougar Town. I did not understand the reference.

A friend compared an ex-girlfriend to Snooki. I know this person is on a show called The Jersey Shore because a man called The Situation once co-hosted an ESPN news show and mentioned her during the course of the program. But I don’t know who these people are, why they are relevant, and how this comparison to Snooky delineated the character of my friend’s old girlfriend.

A friend referenced The Rocky Horror Picture Show, causing me to assume that she had attended a live event. As a card-carrying member of The Rocky Horror Picture Show fan club, I became quite excited about the news that she was a fan of the cult hit and the live theatrical events until she told me that her reference had noting to do with the actual movie but a show called Glee.

Twice this weekend someone referenced Lady Gaga’s meat dress. I am still not sure if this is real or these people were being facetious.

On The Office, one of the characters dressed up as Lady Gaga for Halloween. I could not figure out who he was supposed to be until he was speaking to a character about specific Lady Gaga dance moves.

A friend referenced a show called The Event. I thought that he was saying “the event” and had not finished his sentence.

All these from a three-day period.

As these confusions pile up, I start to wonder if I am going to become so culturally detached to the world that stories, jokes, references and innuendos will start to make no sense to me at all.

How much television must an American watch to remain in the mainstream conversation? And am I missing out on something meaningful through my limited television viewing? While there are television shows like Mad Men and Dexter that I would like to watch, my current schedule only allows for one show at a time, and even then, Elysha and I probably average about an hour of television a day.

This doesn’t allow for a lot of catching up.

Just when I was started to feel a little disconnected from the mainstream conversation, good news was laid upon my doorstep.

“An extensive research study has found that unhappy people watch more TV while those consider themselves happy spend more time reading and socializing.

The University of Maryland analyzed 34 years of data collected from more than 45,000 participants and found that watching TV might make you feel good in the short term but is more likely to lead to overall unhappiness.

‘The pattern for daily TV use is particularly dramatic, with 'not happy' people estimating over 30 percent more TV hours per day than 'very happy' people,’ the study says. ‘Television viewing is a pleasurable enough activity with no lasting benefit, and it pushes aside time spent in other activities -- ones that might be less immediately pleasurable, but that would provide long-term benefits in one's condition. In other words, TV does cause people to be less happy.’

The study, published in the December issue of Social Indicators Research, analyzed data from thousands of people who recorded their daily activities in diaries over the course of several decades. Researchers found that activities such as sex, reading and socializing correlated with the highest levels of overall happiness.

Watching TV, on the other hand, was the only activity that had a direct correlation with unhappiness.”

I often tell people that I am the happiest person that I know, and in the past, I’ve actually written on the subject (perhaps I should update my happiness status in a post soon).

Perhaps my limited television viewing is an indicator of my overall happiness.

Maybe I don’t ever need to know if Lady Gaga really wore a meat dress or if dating a girl like Snooky is a good or bad thing,

I’m suddenly feeling a lot better about myself.

I can tell you one thing for certain:

I would not have found news of this University of Maryland study in the Times had I been watching The Jersey Shore or The Event.

But it’s just Bram

I told my buddy that I’ll be spending my afternoon watching football with my friend, Bram. “Who’s Bram?” he asked.

“Oh, Bram Weinstein,” I said. “He works for ESPN. He's a SportsCenter anchor. And other stuff, too. College football. Radio. He was the Redskins beat reporter for a while. Lots of stuff.”

“You’re watching the game with an ESPN SportsCenter anchor?” my friend asked, his voice filled with awe and reverence. “A guy who works on-air for ESPN?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess. But it’s just Bram.”

It’s remarkable how the celebrity luster fades once you actually get to know a person.

Confessions of an Elmo addict

Ever since my daughter began watching Sesame Street, I’ve noticed a few things, including the following: 1. I have probably watched a total of three hours of Sesame Street in the last three months, and I use the term watched loosely. I am often folding clothes, brushing me teeth, getting dressed or listening to a podcast while the show is on, and yet I feel I am completely in touch with the show.

Bizarre.

2. My wife has an uncommonly strong dislike for the Abby’s Flying Fairy School segment. In fact, she hates it and has tried fast-forwarding past the segment at least once.

3. I find it odd that the show often features guests like Reggie Bush without indicating his name in any way. Many NFL fans would not be able to identify the New Orleans Saints running back without his jersey on, so what chance does the average Sesame Street viewer have in doing so?

Moreover, is Reggie Bush’s presence supposed to appeal to the few NFL fans who might recognize him? Will hardcore football fans find his performance on Sesame Street enough to keep them coming back for more?

Not me. And not likely.

4. Elmo is shockingly compelling. His enthusiasm is infectious.  His zest for life is enthralling. His vim and vigor are to be admired and emulated. Elmo finds great joy in hopping on one foot, and I find myself wanting to hop on one foot as well, in hopes of experiencing even a modicum of the happiness and excitement that he garners from the hops.

I want to be Elmo’s friend.

Desperately so.

Is there a reason to cater to adults?

My daughter has started watching Sesame Street in the morning while my wife is taking a shower and getting ready for work.  As a result, we’ve been catching a few minutes here and there, and I’ve been shocked at the number of parodies and spoofs that the makers of Sesame Street use as a framework for their segments. 

Law and Order, Mad Men and Sex in the City are just three that I have seen, and she’s only been watching the show for a few weeks. 

I don’t get it. 

Do the producers think that parents are watching this show?

Do they think that we find these parodies entertaining?

Why cater this show to adults at all?  If the goal is to teach the kids about the alphabet, isn’t there a better and more engaging way of doing so than placing the lesson in the framework of a Law and Order episode, complete with dozens of Law and Order’s famous transitional bong-bongs?

Having never seen an episode of Law and Order, what is my daughter thinking as the bong-bong fires off again and again? 

I’m sure it’s not helping her learn about the letter B. 

Susan Stamberg confirms that I’m not old man.

In a character analysis of Eric Cartman from South Park, NPR’s Susan Stamberg played a famous rant from the foul mouthed cartoon boy. She then said, “If you don’t recognize this voice, then you probably aren’t a male ages 18-24.”

Suddenly I felt very hip and cool, youthful and cutting-edge.

No, Susan Stamberg, I'm not 18-24, but I know damn well who that boy is.

Knowing that my wife could have identified the voice with equal certainty made me feel even better still.

You have some explaining to do, John Boy.

I watched the Project Runway season premier last night. I realize that this may sound odd coming from a man who professes to despise the fashion industry, but I find the creative demands of the show to be fascinating. In last night’s episode, one of the designers, a twenty-something female designer, was preparing to go to sleep. As the lights were turned out, she called out, “Goodnight, John Boy.”

This is a reference to The Waltons, a television show about a family growing up in a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression and World War II. In the signature scene that closed every episode, the family house was enveloped in darkness, save for a light in an upstairs window. Through voice-overs, two or more characters would have a brief conversation, often humorous and related to the episode, and then bid each other good-night.

"Good night, Mary Ellen."

"Good night, John Boy."

But you already knew that. Right?

Even though the show aired from 1972 to 1981.

I can vaguely remember watching the show from time to time as a child, but it was off the air before I had even reached middle school. All I really remember is the song that opened the show and the signature closing described above.

So here’s my question:

How does a reference to The Waltons, a marginally-popular television show that went off the air more than twenty-five years, continue to survive so ubiquitously today?

How does someone who was born well after the show was cancelled refer to it so accurately on last night’s episode of Project Runway?

And how does everyone watching the show, and probably everyone reading this post, immediately understand this quarter-of-a-century old reference from a television show that most of you can probably never even remember watching?

Perhaps my publisher should triple the price of my book

It is a sad fact that price seems to equate to pleasure in human beings.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology recently studied a subject’s reaction to wine after being informed about the price of the bottle.

Of course, the researchers were not truthful about the price.

Two of the wines sampled were offered twice, once at an alleged low price and once at a much higher price. And the subjects consistently said they enjoyed what they thought were expensive wines more.

What’s more, a brain scan of the subjects indicated that although their taste centers registered the wines equally, the pleasure centers of their brains registered greater pleasure for the more expensive wine.

Certain aspects of humanity are disgusting, don’t you think?

But are all humans susceptible to this tendency? I can think of a bunch of people who I know who most certainly are, but I’d like to think that I’m enough of a contrarian and a minimalist to be immune to this much of this nonsense.

But probably not.  While I have no strong attachment to material possessions, I could see myself succumb to the illusion that a more expensive golf ball will fly farther or a more expensive club will allow me to strike the ball better.

I think I’m less susceptible than most, given my general distaste for materialism, but sadly, I’m also a little human.     

But you know who might be immune to this tendency?  My new hero.  

Rachael Ray.

I know.  You weren’t expecting that name.  Were you?

I got caught watching Rachael Ray’s daytime program for about two minutes the other day when I couldn’t find the remote control (my dog was sitting on it). She had a segment about the newest fashion trends, highlighting some fashion deals available in the marketplace today.

An odd-looking fellow named Cojo presented several pairs items from the world of lady's fashion.  In each pairing, one item was excessively expensive and one that was not.  At one point Cojo showed Rachael a Valentino purse and told her that it retailed for $895.

Rachael’s response:

That is stupid. I would never buy a bag that cost $800. My mother would kill me.

And you know what? I believed her.

Despite the wealth that she has likely accumulated, I really believe that she was disgusted at the price of the bag and would not purchase it.

I didn’t have much of an opinion on Rachael Ray before today. Even though it seems as if everyone in the world watches the Food Network (including my entire book club), I do not, so I have only experienced Rachael in bits and pieces, on commercials and on the occasional cooking show that Elysha might be watching.  And though the little bit that I’ve seen of her is sometimes annoying, I became Rachael Ray’s biggest fan today when she declared her opposition to these disgustingly inflated, image obsessed, status symbol prices.

Imagine what a delightful world it would be if every woman stood up and rejected the $1,200 sweater and the $400 pair of shoes like the great Rachael Ray…

And if every man stood up and declared a $800 watch or a $35 golf ball to be utter stupidity…

Probably not going to happen, huh?

But at least we know there’s something going on in the brain when someone pays $2,000 for a handbag.  I may still find this behavior disgusting and inane, but there’s a biologic component to the lunacy as well.   

Like a disease…

It also helps to explain the obscenity of objects like this.

Animated Jewish philosopher

A reader recently asked me why I was using a South Park character as my profile photo on Goodreads and on several other social networks. I had to explain that this was not just any South Park character. It was me.

A few years ago, Elysha took the time to "South Park" us. She did a fine job. Don’t you think?

We adore South Park. In fact, a few years ago we both came to the grudging and almost sacrilegious conclusion that South Park was better than The Simpsons. This didn't mean that The Simpsons wasn’t good. Just that South Park was better.

It wasn’t an easy thing to admit.

South Park played an important role in one of the most important moments of our lives:

Our wedding.

I made several toasts at our wedding, including one to Elysha’s grandmother, one to my in-laws and one to all of my friends. The only family member present for my nuptials was my sister, so I wanted to let my many friends know how important they are in my life.

They really are like family to me.

In toasting them, I said, “To quote the famous philosopher… the famous Jewish philosopher Kyle Broflovski …”

(At this, I saw several of Elysha’s relatives nod in Jewish approval as my friends tittered with glee)

“…Family isn’t about whose blood you have. It’s about who you care about.”

The philosopher who I referenced is indeed Jewish, but he is also animated.

Confirmed perfection

I was watching Journeyman today, a show that was sadly cancelled by NBC after just one season. In the episode, two characters are discussing the possibility of marriage.

The female character asks, “Are you looking for a woman who will eat take-out and watch South Park?”

The male character responds, “If I hold out for perfection, I might never get married.”

The pride and joy that I felt in knowing that I married a take-out loving, South Park junky was indescribable.

Floor plan of Dunder Mifflin

I love The Office.  There was a time when Jim and Pam weren’t together that I hung on every machination of their potential relationship.

The best part of this floor plan of the office is the thus-far unexplored section in the top center.  What could this mystery space contain?

Sadly, I’m more intrigued by this than by most of the undisclosed mysteries from Lost.

Blame my distaste of broccoli on advertising. Or the lack thereof.

I have always believed that massive amounts of money are wasted on advertising. The highway billboard, the late-night restaurant commercial, and the scented magazine ad have always seemed ridiculous to me. Intelligent people like me are immune to the mundane and transparent trappings of the advertising world. This is what I have always assumed.

Apparently I was wrong.

Stanford University researchers recently learned that anything made by McDonald's tastes better to preschoolers, according to a study that demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children. Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids if it was wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches. The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald's foods in name-brand or unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.

In addition, the strength of the branding was directly linked to the number of televisions in the child’s home. The greater the number of televisions, the stronger the branding.

It makes me wonder how my life might have been different had the International Fruit and Vegetable Alliance done a better job promoting leafy, green vegetables when I was a kid.

Too much television

There are more televisions in an average US household than there are people.

By 2006, Nielsen Media Research estimated that the average US household had 2.73 televisions sets. Compare that with an estimated 2.55 people living in an average household in the US.

We have two televisions in our home, and thanks to the addition of Clara, that means we have more people in the home than televisions (even though Clara is not really allowed to watch TV).

I’m happy to be under this US average in this regard.

Speaking of television, my wife and I are about to enter a period in which we will need a new show to watch.  We don’t watch much TV, and we tend to watch one or two shows at a time.  With the conclusion of The Pacific and shows like The Office going into summer hiatus, we find ourselves with nothing to watch. 

We’ll catch up on 30 Rock when the latest season becomes available on DVD, but otherwise we’re in need of a suggestion or two.

Thoughts or recommendations?

I don’t have a relationship with my electric toothbrush, but I still use it daily

I recently heard Alice Waters, well known restaurateur, explain to Bill Maher that she does not use a microwave because “I don’t have a relationship with that machine.”

And Maher let that ridiculous, nonsensical statement go unchallenged.

When experts begin to speak in drivel and mumbo-jumbo, ordinary folk need to call them on it.  Bill Maher missed an opportunity and an obligation to tell Waters how stupid she sounded.  

Better in my belly than on television

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who watch the Food Network and me.

At least that’s what it seems like sometimes.

Why do I constantly find myself in a conversation with people who are gushing over some woman named Gelato and complaining about the amount of butter that a woman named Paula Dean uses in her recipes?

Are cooking shows so compelling as to draw viewers from across my friendship spectrum?

Someone please explain.