Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005.<\/b> It seems fruitless and self-serving to merely write stuff that’s a reaction to stuff. Stuff. Stuff. Stuff.<\/p>\n
Last month, I threw a Brick that Johnny Carson in death deserves all the credit for talent, longevity and knowing when to leave the stage that he is getting in eulogies, yet it shouldn’t be forgotten both that his show was leeringly sexist as well as numbingly repetitive.<\/p>\n
I have one more point: The talk shows in those days did do one thing right: Its guests were not always, always, promoting or hawking movies or books or TV shows. Some were on because they were interesting, fun or off-beat. Comics — the biggest eulogizers in recent weeks — back then rarely were introduced as having just begun the second season of their sitcoms but that they were playing a week at the Improv or some Vegas showroom. Tens of millions of “Tonight Show” viewers being sold to fly out to grab one of a few dozen seats, on a two-drink minimum? No, the comics were on to entertain TV viewers.<\/p>\n
That was nice.<\/p>\n
It seems that 9\/11 changed the guest list, fortunately. Now, the main network shows also have thinkers and public servants, even journalists without books to hawk, on occasion.<\/p>\n
But count on Johnny to have invited Tiny Tim and Calvin Trillin numerous times, no matter their box office appeal.<\/p>\n
I’m still merely reacting. Maybe it’s OK. The sun came out this morning, and I reacted by getting out of bed and writing this. Original? Yes, despite almost everything. – 30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005. It seems fruitless and self-serving to merely write stuff that’s a reaction to stuff. Stuff. Stuff. Stuff. Last month, I threw a Brick that Johnny Carson in death deserves all the credit for talent, longevity and knowing when to leave the stage that he is getting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/07\/cant-get-no-supreme-court-action\/","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":0},"title":"Can’t get no (Supreme Court action)","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, July 21, 2005. When we say the president names a nominee who then gets the appointment following the advice and consent of the Senate, we mean everyone from the Cabinet and a few top Executive Branch positions to all the federal judges. So far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":158,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/02\/when-its-you-its-still-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":1},"title":"When it’s you, it’s still me","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005. Friendship needs addressing, maybe tomorrow. It's not a reaction to a news item, either, like most Bricks. But it is a reaction, to how this subject broadly came up in me, even though I don't know. With this as the latest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":148,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/05\/god-sheds-over-yonder\/","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":2},"title":"God shed’s over yonder","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, May 5, 2005. I attended one of the things I thought I'd never see, a National Day of Prayer service at noon today. I participated in one of the sets. As a member of the Bella Vista Recorder Consort, I played on tenor recorder\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":121,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/08\/unintentional-humor\/","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":3},"title":"Unintentional humor","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Aug. 19, 2005: The latest innovation in Internet advertising is a boon to humor columnists. Maybe it's not the absolute newest improvement but now widespread is a customization factor: You open a newspaper Web site's article on, for example, gardening, and a couple of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/07\/a-block-is-not-a-brick\/","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":4},"title":"A block is not a brick","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, July 13, 2005. So what I do is just admit my fear. Look at this gap in time: days since the last Brick, feels like a month. Why? A lack of topics as well as a lack of opinions? No. It was the feeling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/04\/news-recycle\/","url_meta":{"origin":159,"position":5},"title":"News (Re)cycle","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"April 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, April 1, 2005. The paradox of broadcast journalism. It's known for immediacy and visuals, especially compared to print. CNN and similar channels have brought 24\/7 continuousness to the medium as well. This emphasizes its demand for the NOW, as opposed to print's process: Gather\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}