Spring 1942
After posting a column on Friday December 28, 2012, in which
we criticized the CBS Evening News for relying heavily on videos of people
crying, we tuned in that night to the broadcast and saw a crying man who went
out and actually begged for a kidney for his wife, a crying woman who lost her
house to the bankers (banks don't foreclose homes people working for those
banks do [?]), and a crying man who was part of a couple whose effort to adopt
a Russian orphan had come to a halt because of a new Russian law. On the NBC Nightly News broadcast for
Saturday December 29th, we saw a feature story with a video of a
fellow who plays soccer and might get an offer from an American Football team
to come and work in the USA. The video had gone viral on the Internets and
we wondered if a video of a crying pundit would "go viral" if it was posted on
Youtube. Did we just sabotage all (and
we do mean all) our chances for becoming a late addition to the list of famous
journalists known as "Murrow's Boys"?
Slightly after four p.m. on the day we published the column criticizing CBS for tarnishing their legacy that was established by Edward R. Murrow, we heard Norm Goldman criticize, on his radio broadcast, a brand of banks (think of a 1939 movie that was a career breakthrough for John Wayne) because a recent decision by the Ninth Superior Court seemed to legitimize some unscrupulous accounting practices that always favored the bank and screwed the public.
While preparing to write a new column, we suddenly
remembered the old oriental parable that ends with the punch line: "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a
man who had no feet (those damn drones at it again?)." Voila!
We had a Sutter's Mill Moment. An
epiphany, as it were.
We didn't need to envy CBS their ability to send a reporter and (union) camera crew out to video a person who was having tough times during post financial cliff period of uncertainty, if we wanted to get a video that would go viral on the Internets, we needed to get a video of a bank official who, wracked by guilt, was crying while contemplating the damage he had wrought.
Then what?
Everybody would see it.
Then what?
One thing seems certain. If we get a video of a banker crying because of his complicity in a business practice that destroys hundreds of lives, CBS Evening News sure as hell ain't gonna do a feature about how the World's Laziest Journalist made a video that went viral on the Internets. Dang! It's a tad late in the game to start searching for a new career . . . but . . . it will be a new year soon. It will be a new year in some places when this column is posted.
Whatever happened to the guy who was America's oldest porn actor? Did he retire? Could we do some Gonzo style reporting about
walking a mile in his moccasins?
Speaking of the cinema, since we do love movies and since a goodly number of young folks like the movies made by Quentin Tarantino and since he has a new film just out, perhaps we could go see it and write a review as a way to rekindle our career as a film reviewer. (Google Richard Ebert's review of "Van Wilder" and read the last two paragraphs.)
Perhaps since we are not fully versed on the Facebook fad,
we can just designate everything the World's Laziest Journalist posts as "open
to the public" and give George Taki (of Stark Trek fame) a run for the title of
the most popular guy on that website.
We have heard of one woman in L. A. who went to a director to ask for a loan and was told: "Write a sentence on this sheet of paper." She was totally perplexed but did as she was asked. He threw the results in a drawer and jumped on the intercom and instructed his secretary to draw up a standard amount check for buying the film rights (to that sentence). There are people in Hollywood who make a decent living just by selling ideas (known as "a pitch") for films.
Didn't one of those specialists become a director with
offices on Wilshire Blvd.
in Santa Monica? Hmmm.
If he is busy maybe we could track him down and start a new career in
pitching and sell him an idea for a new film?
Hey, bro, do you want to buy the story (with a few more specific details supplied) of a nurse who successfully escaped from a POW camp? Yeah, yeah, yeah we know about the guy who used a motorcycle to escape from a POW camp in WWII but this is another "based on a true story" adventure with a chick as the protagonist. What actress could turn down a chance to walk a mile in Steve McQueen's moccasins?
Our columns rarely get comments but isn't the topic of which
young actress could evoke favorable comparisons to Steve McQueen rich with the
potential for astute suggestions?
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