Bill Bradley Saved My Infant
Dear Merrill,
What do you mean? The L.A. equivalent of the New York Post is just
the whole city itself.
I actually saw the Today show Ricky Martin concert, not because I was
awake for it (of course) but on a Denver local newscast when I was visiting my
mom. They kept saying, "And coming up, Ricky Martin mania!" or whatever, like
it was a news item, and I'm sitting there thinking "ah, the sad state of
journalism"-type thoughts, but I didn't know the half of it because then so
anyway when they finally got to the segment, they actually rebroadcast the
whole show, not just clips or highlights, but the whole thing in its
entirety! I mean, what the hell is that? Afterwards, they cut back to the
anchorwoman and she's trading quips with the other newscaster and fanning
herself in that Hand-Gesture That Wouldn't Raise an Eyebrow in the Middle of
Sunday Services way that very, very middle-aged, very, very white people do to
indicate that they have become sexually aroused. The noble fourth estate!
An equivalent would be when papers run giant articles reporting the content
of an upcoming 60-second campaign ad. Today's was in the New York Times ,
on Bradley's first big promo spot, in which, because he drafted a bill to allow
women to remain hospitalized for 48 hours after delivering a newborn, a woman
claims that "Thanks to Bill Bradley, my daughter is alive today." It turns out
that her baby was born before the bill was ratified, but the explanation
offered was that the bill's postpartum passage gave her the confidence she
needed to have another baby, later. Now, as a carbon-based life form, my
cells require regular fluid intake to survive. Yet, somehow I don't see myself
ever earnestly emoting to a camera "Thanks to public-works pioneer Thurmond
Elias Plefko, the Madison commissioner of waterworks from 1834 to 1872, who
installed my city's water system, I am alive today," although technically I
suppose its sort of true.
Speaking of public works, while I have no idea what Dick Riordan ate for
lunch, I can tell you what's in his toilet bowl even as we speak: water that
nature, in her wisdom, intended to be thousands of miles away from him. Since
L.A. is a savage desert hellscape not fit for human life, it has to suck its
lifeblood, Scream, Blacula, Scream -style, from the whole western half of
the continent. No offense, some of my best friends are Angelenos (because they
are comedy writers, and there is an unwritten law saying anyone who writes
comedy has to live in a sprawling array of car phones and one-story buildings
stretching hundreds of miles in every direction), and besides, any city that
can come up with Being John Malkovich , which is, in addition to being a
nice metaphor for Hillary Clinton's identity-shifting Senate bid (as well as,
well, her whole existence), quite possibly the greatest movie ever made,
deserves nothing but admiration.
I've heard An American Movie is fabtastic and I'll see it tonight so
I can discuss it with you tomorrow.
By the way, I see now that Mahir has made Time magazine! Look on his
works, ye mighty, and despair!
Gee this is fun,
Todd
P.S.: I should probably add somewhere in here that my mother is a wonderful
person and I love her very much.
