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May 16, 2007

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my guess is that bril will say something positive about pie.

Let's give them a better sense of what "resonates" and what doesn't.

ok, done. here's to hoping Mr NC-4 is interested in my opinion of him.

But What Will Bril Say?

"Blah blah blah Harry Reid is teh debbil blah blah blah Democrats heart al Qaeda blah blah blah hyperlinks = teh suxor blah blah blah ObWi has a BDS!!!1"

Something like that, I'd wager.

I called my Congresswoman and urged her to support both bills.

Frankly, if the Democrats are lukewarm about this, it would be a great opportunity for the Republicans to embarass them by supporting the measures en masse - not that that is likely to happen, because they surely love their bundled contributions too.

I do wonder, if the measures ultimately fail, will the brils of the world be just as hard on the Republicans who opposed them, or will it be all about how the "Democrat Congress" failed to get lobbying reform done?

Steve: We've done what we can to make sure that we never have to find out the answer to your question. If everyone else does the same, we will live out our days in blissful ignorance ;)

The Repubs won't support it -- they don't want the Dems to have meaningful reform to their credit.

The Repubs won't support it

Some will, hopefully enough. Any of them who think they lost Congress primarily due to the Iraq war are deluding themselves. It’s about corruption for a lot of us. I’ve asked Gilchrest (MD-1) to support it.

Kudos Speaker Pelosi. (ack! Pfut Phut. Jeeze that hurts.)

I've heard complaints about this bill, to the effect that the definition of "lobbying" may be so broad that it would require any group that asks people to contact Congress, (A Constitutional right, see the 1st amendment.) to comply with the reporting requirements. Of course, those complaints were about an earlier version, HR 2093, I don't know how this version stacks up in that regard.

Brett: good question. I looked it up. The one part about which I can imagine this charge being leveled is the two-year ban on lobbying. Here, however, the problem is with the existing law (here); all HR 2316 does is change 'one year' to 'two years' at various points.

I don't see any such problem with HR 2317, which just requires disclosure of any bundled contributions.

Also: the lobbying bans in the existing code don't apply to anyone who contacts Congress etc., but to, for instance:

"Any person who is an officer or employee (including any special Government employee) of the executive branch of the United States (including any independent agency of the United States), or of the District of Columbia, and who, after the termination of his or her service or employment with the United States or the District of Columbia, knowingly makes, with the intent to influence, any communication to or appearance before any officer or employee of any department, agency, court, or court-martial of the United States or the District of Columbia, on behalf of any other person (except the United States or the District of Columbia) in connection with a particular matter—

(A) in which the United States or the District of Columbia is a party or has a direct and substantial interest,

(B) in which the person participated personally and substantially as such officer or employee, and

(C) which involved a specific party or specific parties at the time of such participation ..."

OT: Worst TV idea ever.

Rep. McDermott's office (D-Wa) was concerned that the bill might affect non profits. I said hardly, given the practices that were being targetted. He has not taken a position on the bills and I urged that he support them. Obviously, I'm just a small fry. Hopefully someone bigger can get to him on this.

Hilzoy: "OT: Worst TV idea ever."

You linked to an AP story covering ABC's upfront on their entire schedule (this is upfronts week, of course): are you objecting to the entire ABC schedule? (I wouldn't really argue.) Or something more specific?

(Most of the potential programs have been leaked for a couple of months or so; the only one that got a ton of media attention was the Geico caveman thing, back in March, when there were all those stories about the show-based-on-advertising, but I suspect you may have missed that, perhaps.)

A quick bit of searching reveals that the offensive "grassroots lobbying" provisions got dropped back in January. Never mind.

Worst TV idea ever.

yeah.

well, that and Cop Rock.

"well, that and Cop Rock."

I always thought that "It's About Time" -- which was the first comparison that leapt to mind when I saw the news about the tv ads being made into a tv program a few months ago -- and "My Mother, The Car," were the epitome. But I am old and withered.

Cop Rock, on the other hand, was a high-quality, high concept, program, with an idea no stranger than that of being a musical -- which is generally not considered an exotic experiment by this century, I'm informed (say, those people are suddenly singing in the midst of their drama! That's crazy!) -- that didn't entirely work.

But it was, I would argue strongly, better than at least 70% of all tv programs ever produced. Which would you rather watch: The Beverly Hillbillies, or Cop Rock?

Hilzoy: OT: Worst TV idea ever.

Worse than National Bingo Night?

an idea no stranger than that of being a musical

not just a musical: a serialized, TV musical. can writers be expected to crank out listenable songs week after week ? most songwriters take years for listenable albums - and they aren't trying to write to a plot line.

"can writers be expected to crank out listenable songs week after week ?"

A perfectly fair question, but I imagine that so long as one has a budget to pay a bunch of songwriters, and the standard is only "listenable," that the answer could plausibly be "yes," though I'm only speculating.

(I'm not clear that the Writer's Guild would require that the scriptwriters would also be songwriters, rather than that one could simply have a budget to pay for five, or whatever number, of songs per episode; there's no shortage of songwriters interested in selling their songs, so far as I know; it's not as it would have to be the same five people writing the songs each week, after all, any more than there's some law or regulation limiting the number of people scripts can be bought from each season.)

If the standard were a bit higher, such as "that most viewers will find more pleasing than spending those minutes on dialogue and visuals each week," then the answer becomes far more uncertain, and perhaps the answer is "no."

But if you cut out the several minutes of song and dance from each 44-minute, or however long the precise length then was, episode, the show was otherwise vaguely not far below the quality of Bochco's other lousy cop shows, such as Hill St. Blues and NYPD Blue, and I'm not personally inclined to become heated about picking on someone for taking some artistic risks, which arguably failed, as an example of What's Worst About TV.

That approach seems deeply perverse to me, given the amount of vastly lower-quality material on tv (admittedly always a subjective judgment), which takes no risks whatever.

Naturally, YMMV.

And otherwise we could all dump out our subjective preferences and claim they're objective fact.

Or not. I've yet to find a "reality" tv program that interested me more than for a few minutes, but although I can be fairly snobbish about some of my opinions, I'd never go so far -- save as attempted humor, I hope -- as to insist that people who find more of interest in them are somehow objectively "wrong."

Tastes vary.

On the other hand, I'd defend the notion that, say, Cop Rock was more artistically ambitious, and less worthy of being cited as The Worst TV Ever than, say, The Price Is Right. Or It's About Time.

But perhaps you'd like to defend your argument that these are better shows than Cop Rock was.

"can writers be expected to crank out listenable songs week after week ?"

Or to put my point another way: I'm unclear how this question differs from "can writers be expected to crank out readable scripts week after week ?" or "can producers be expected to find producable scripts week after week ?"

To which the answers seem to be "yes" and "yes," though few would claim anyone has ever produced nothing but excellent work every time out.

After losing a string of embarrassing votes on the House floor because of procedural maneuvering, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has decided to change the current House Rules to completely shut down the floor to the minority.

Damn Bush and his fascist America!

More from Pelosi:

“Minority Leader Pelosi says a Democratic majority next year would place a heavy emphasis on bipartisanship -- and would offer the Republicans minority rights often denied Democrats now.” "[I would like] to come as close as you can in the political reality to a bipartisan management of the House"

“Pelosi…intends to stand by a proposal she offered House Speaker Hastert two years ago to enact a Minority Bill of Rights.”

“It includes … a commitment to moving legislation through regular order…”

“"I would consider the role to be speaker of the House, not speaker of the Democrats" [Pelosi] said.”

“Pelosi said her time as minority leader has been spent "learning in the minority how you don't want to be treated, and that's how we would not want them to be treated."”

“In perhaps the biggest break from the current practices of GOP leaders, Pelosi said she would be willing to lose votes on the floor.”

"I certainly would not say that we can't bring things to the floor because we'll lose…”

The sad thing is she says one thing and either does another or doesn't follow through. It appears she conveniently sets herself up to fail, hence accomplishing nothing, but gets to talk the talk

If she wants to claim the high ground she has to be more honest and put forth straight forward proposals people can get behind. She needs to quit playing politics and bring substance to the American people. She's all talk and no substance.

That got her elected, but its not enough now. The American people will eventually see through it all.

But c'mon. Am I the only one concerned about the fascist government Bush has helped to create?

well that's kind of creepy

Helpful hint, bril: if you wish to make a credible argument with a quote, you have to cite where the quote comes from.

(The second part is then linking to proof of the authenticity, or at least the source, of the quote, but we'll take one part at a time.)

George Washington famously said this, of course. And he said specifically that if bril doesn't follow this rule, no one will ever find bril's argument to resemble an actual argument. And Abe Lincoln added that bril will never pass kindergarten trolling until he learns that citeless claims aren't even worth discussing.

No, really, Washington and Lincoln said this. I don't need to provide a source or cite to be credible, do I?

Needless to say, one might have difficulty understanding the concepts of "credibility" and "citation" when you take Matt Drudge, the man who cites anonymous sources, as credible.

What strikes me as creepy is that I vaguely remember a joke version of the It's About Time theme song
(as I recall, it started:
It's about time
It's about space
It's about time
To get a new face)
even though I was not yet 3 when the show went off the air. I guess maybe I learned it from my older brother.

I'm unclear how this question differs from "can writers be expected to crank out readable scripts week after week ?

maybe it's not. but i just can't think of any other situation where songwriters have to do it. and, personally, i hate the kind of uninspired generic crap that people write for most musicals, even when they have months to work them out. doing three or four topical songs a week? either the muse gets ground-down, or it's all done by-the-numbers.

But perhaps you'd like to defend your argument that these are better shows than Cop Rock was.

if we take the measure of viewers' and advertisers' support for them, there's no doubt those shows are better. Cop Rock lasted what, a half-dozen episodes, at the most ? TPiR has been on non-stop for decades.

Let's see -- a post premised around what a troll would say.

Love it.

At least it's more interesting than the real thing.

"What strikes me as creepy is that I vaguely remember a joke version of the It's About Time theme song"

It was an extremely catchy jingle, I'll give them that.

cleek: "if we take the measure of viewers' and advertisers' support for them, there's no doubt those shows are better."

Ah. I wasn't aware that this was your metric for artistic quality of tv shows. As it's not mine, I won't argue further.

To be sure, by that measure, Cop Rock is certainly not the "worst. tv. ever," since literally hundreds of tv shows have done far worse.

For instance:

Kodiak, starring Clint Walker (Cheyenne), lasted exactly one episode before being cancelled due to massively low ratings.
That's happened to a number of other shows. Some shows have even been cancelled in mid-episode:
Notably, a Cheers rerun replaced Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos on Australia's Nine Network. The latter was cancelled mid-episode on its only broadcast by Kerry Packer, who pulled the plug after a phone call.
So how this supports your claim that Cop Rock is the worst TV idea ever, I don't know, but perhaps this is all consistent somehow.

"Cop Rock lasted what, a half-dozen episodes, at the most ?"

Eleven hours.

I wonder if you're familiar with Poochinski. Have you ever seen an episode of My Mother, The Car?

JS Bach had writing one cantata per week in his job description, so it seems that once there were people that could produce vocal music of acceptable quality on a weekly basis. And in the 19th century operas* were (at least in Italy) what soap operas are today** (elitists like Verdi were an exception). Repetitiveness and lack of originality*** is (alas!) standard and not considered a no-no on TV.


*average time of composing 3-4 weeks
**the quality (or lack of) was comparable too, I suppose. The quote "what's to insipid to be spoken on stage can still be sung" is from about that time, I think.
***Rossini is quoted saying that it was enough to see one of his operas to have seen them all

Wait a minute, what's wrong the The Price is Right?

Ah. I wasn't aware that this was your metric for artistic quality of tv shows.

uh.. no, Gary. mentioning one method of comparing TV shows doesn't mean that's the only method i use when thinking about these things.

As it's not mine, I won't argue further.

and yet...

To be sure, by that measure, Cop Rock is certainly not the "worst. tv. ever," since literally hundreds of tv shows have done far worse.

oh fer fncks sake, Gary... the Geico cavemen show might not be the "worst. tv. ever," either - it has a pilot which is going to be shown on national TV, which is more than most ideas get. the commercials themselves are funny, which is at least a better starting point than "Hill Street Blues + songs", or "let's watch surgery!" so, when are you going to jump on hilzoy for her horrid lack of precision in failing to take into account all of the objectively worse ideas that get made into pilots, and then into shows? come on, don't hold back - prove her wrong! wrong! wrong!

or, maybe you can just accept that "worst __ ever" is not an objective statement of absolute fact.

The comment thread of a post addressed to an incorrigible threadjacker is itself threadjacked. Surely there's a German word for this phenomenon?

"so, when are you going to jump on hilzoy for her horrid lack of precision in failing to take into account all of the objectively worse ideas that get made into pilots, and then into shows?"

After the caveman show is broadcast, and there's reaction, I could conceivably debate and discuss its quality or lack thereof. Or not.

Since Cop Rock has, on the other hand, long existed, and I think it was a fairly good show, with much to praise, I'm curiously willing to defend it from mindless remarks whose remaining defense seems to be "I didn't mean what I said!; I was just uttering a thoughtless cliche with no point!; stop responding to my continued arguments, because that's unfair!"

If it was too unimportant a topic for me to respond to, then what makes it different for you?

[Bad TV idea] and [of artistic value] are not mutually exclusive. They may even correlate to some degree.

I'm curiously willing to defend it from mindless remarks whose remaining defense seems to be "I didn't mean what I said!; I was just uttering a thoughtless cliche with no point!; stop responding to my continued arguments, because that's unfair!"

what's curious about your defense of a crappy 11-hour TV show from two decades ago is how eager you seem to be to take it right up to the edge of personal insult. but besides that, your arguments in Cop Rock's favor include several variations of "it's not as bad as [some other show]", a pedantic attack on the phrase "worst ___ ever", and "the show was otherwise vaguely not far below the quality of Bochco's other lousy cop shows". woohoo!

and yet it's "a fairly good show, with much to praise" ?

make up your mind.

If it was too unimportant a topic for me to respond to, then what makes it different for you?

i was responding to the questions you asked.

I must admit that if the song "Remind Me" by Roykskopp (used in the Caveman airport commercial) is the theme music for the show, I'll tune in.

That song puts me in a very pleasant, Zen-like, elevator music, flat-line zone. If they played it at the dentist's office or during Republican candidate debates, I believe I could do without the root canal anesthetic in the former and the mute button and thrown shoe during the latter.

You can see a clip of the show here. It's about as lame as you'd expect.

Is Typepad working again?

"the show was otherwise vaguely not far below the quality of Bochco's other lousy cop shows"

Hint: "lousy" was sarcasm, given Bochco's record of elevating the cop show from Dragnet and Adam-12 into art.

If it was too unimportant a topic for me to respond to, then what makes it different for you?

i was responding to the questions you asked.

I guess that only works one way.

From the article:

The series pokes fun at the normally serious topic of racial attitudes, but since they're cavemen "it gives you kind of the ability to offend everybody but offend no one," McPherson said.

Did everyone shudder as much as I did when they read that? Eeeesh!

("Cop Rock" rocked! Maybe not The. Best. Show. Evah, but far from the worst.)

"Pushing Daisies" -- aka Orpheus and Euridice!

Hint: "lousy" was sarcasm

extremely well-disguised !

"extremely well-disguised !"

To someone who feels that "Bochco" isn't an implausible companion to "lousy cop shows," that's clearly possible.

Myself, I felt that the oxymoronic content was self-evident. As ever, opinions vary.

My own view is that Hill St. Blues was one of the best and most important tv dramas in the history of the U.S. And that NYPD Blue was of even far higher quality, as well as even more ground-breaking in what it opened up network tv to (nudity, swearing -- both up to a point, but points far beyond anything known before -- but also in the honesty and realism with which it approached situations and characters). (I was also a fan of LA Law.)

As it happens, these views have tended to be the critical consensus pretty much from the starting episodes of both shows, which certainly doesn't mean you're not perfectly entitled to disagree.

They're not, however, controversial, or minority, views, whereas thinking Bochco an exemplar of "lousy cop shows" is, again, perfectly defensible, but surprising enough that the majority of tv critics would cock an eyebrow, at the least, at the notion.

Thus my view that the sarcasm was obvious.

But we all always come to everything with only the perceptions we have, rather than that of somebody else, and thus the prevalence of mileage varying.

More context:

* 1981 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
* 1981 Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues, "Hill Street Station" (premiere episode)
* 1982 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
* 1982 Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues, "Freedom's Last Stand"
* 1983 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
* 1984 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
* 1987 Outstanding Drama Series, for L.A. Law
* 1987 Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, for L.A. Law, "The Venus Butterfly"
* 1989 Outstanding Drama Series, for L.A. Law
* 1995 Outstanding Drama Series, for NYPD Blue

[edit] Humanitas Prize

* 1981 60-minute Category, for Hill Street Blues
* 1999 90-Minute Category, for NYPD Blue

[edit] Edgar Awards

* 1982 Best Episode in a TV Series Teleplay, for Hill Street Blues, "Hill Street Station"
* 1995 Best Episode in a TV Series Teleplay, for NYPD Blue, "Simone Says"

[edit] Directors Guild of America

* 1999 Diversity Award

[edit] Writers Guild of America

* 1994 Laurel Award for TV Writing Achievement

So when I refer to his "lousy cop shows" in the context of vigorously defending the quality of his work, I don't think the sarcasm is particularly well-hidden or subtle.

But no biggie.

If someone says Beethoven wrote lousy music, I think the sarcasm is pretty obvious.

If someone says Hill Street Blues was a lousy show, I don't think the sarcasm is even slightly obvious. In fact, I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel that way.

What accounts for the difference? Good question. If someone says to me, "Bush is a great president," I certainly don't conclude that he's obviously being sarcastic, notwithstanding Bush's 28% approval rating.

I guess the difference is that Gary is interpreting "great" and "lousy" as signifiers of a general consensus (in other words, I know nothing about classical music, but I know Beethoven was a great composer because he's listed in all the books about great composers), while some others see those words as signifying nothing other than a personal opinion. It's simply a difference in usage.

As for me? I thought V was a great show. I mean really, truly great.

And that NYPD Blue was of even far higher quality...

well, we can agree on that, then. i liked that one, for the first few seasons anyway - then i lost track of it, and when i looked at it again, it didn't grab me.

i never got into HStB... i was a little bit under the target demographic.

but, as Steve notes, it's probably easy to find people who thought they both sucked.

"If someone says Hill Street Blues was a lousy show, I don't think the sarcasm is even slightly obvious."

That may well be, but we're not talking about some random person's opinion: it was my opinion, which it's perfectly clear, I suspect, to cleek is that I think highly of some of the work of Steven Bocho, and that I specifically think Cop Rock had its virtues.

If anyone is confused that that's what I've been saying, please raise your hand: anyone? Anyone?

In that context, my sarcasm would make no sense whatever, as other than sarcasm.

Or possibly you're suggesting that it's so normal for me to express completely contradictory, incoherent, views (I think highly of Bochco's excellent, lousy, cop shows), that that's to be expected, whereas the idea that I might be being sarcastic is so out of character for me that it wouldn't even cross your mind.

Perhaps that's the more sensible view; I'd certainly enjoy seeing it defended.

it's perfectly clear, I suspect, to cleek is that I think highly of some of the work of Steven Bocho

it's clear now.

Why link? You guys are so rigid in your beliefs it wouldn't make a difference.

As usual Gary acts like he knows everything.

Needless to say, one might have difficulty understanding the concepts of "credibility" and "citation" when you take Matt Drudge, the man who cites anonymous sources, as credible.

It's just not worth the effort to shift then

But whatever... its just rumor anyway. Its not like Boehner's office would really have anyway of knowing what Pelosi is doing. They probably just made up the press release.

But hey Gary knows everything and Hilzoy continues to refuse to acknowledge the lies of the Democratic leaders she supports.

No surprises.


"As usual Gary acts like he knows everything."

Not at all. I just know more than you.

"It's just not worth the effort to shift then"

By all means, don't, then. I have no idea what this means, but one wouldn't want to interfere with anyone's shifting or lack of shifting, I'm sure.

Now that we know the answer to the title question, can we please go home?

Not before we have discussed the lousiness of Beethoven's music in depths! ;-)

The statement "Beethoven wrote lousy music" would be probably valid if the implicit omission is "too" or "occasionally" and not "exclusively". The great artists have their bad days too.
Awards (or lack thereof) alone do not say much necessarily (see the Oscars).

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