Fox News: Beyond Satire & Yet We Laugh
The Top 5 (Most Recent) Reasons that Fox News Has Jumped Way, Way Over the Shark into Uncharted Depths of Wing-Nutty Non-Journalism.
In September of 1977, in the climax of a special three-part episode that opened the 5th season of Happy Days, America’s favorite greasy rock n’ roll rebel, Arthur Fonzarelli, performed a now-infamous feat of derring-do. The Fonz donned swim trunks, water skis (and his leather jacket, of course) and jumped over a shark. For many fans and critics, that highly implausible scenario signaled the beginning of the end of the series. That’s why, since 1985 — the year after Happy Days went off the air — the phrase “jumping the shark” has come to mean the point at which a TV program spins off into absurd plot lines and suffers a mortal, self-inflicted wound to its fundamental integrity, often in quest of a ratings boost.
Whatever you may think about the integrity of Fox News at any point since its launch on October 7, 1996 by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes (a former media consultant for Presidents Nixon, Reagan and Bush the First) – the period from January 3-11, 2010 may come to be considered the week that Fox News finally jumped the journalistic shark. Always a reliable source for unreliable information with a right wing spin, Fox News has recently leapt beyond conservative bias into the abyss of utter lunacy. Expect bigger ratings to follow.
The 9-day period, from the day Brit Hume completed his conversion from news anchor to televangelist to the day that Fox News announced that Sarah Palin was on their payroll, marks not just a final shattering of Fox’s facade as a real news organization — it may also sound a death knell for political satire. What is left to ridicule, exaggerate, burlesque or parody when your target has jumped the shark and sailed clear through the looking-glass?
Let’s take a look at just how crazy it’s gotten with a roundup of my Top 5 Fox Non-Newspeople.
#1 Britt Hume: Anchor & Televangelist.
Until recently, droopy, sanctimonious Brit Hume was the D.C. managing editor of Fox News and the anchor of Special Report with Brit Hume. Now in semi-retirement, Brit crawls out from under his rock regularly to appear as a guest pundit on the network. In was as a guest on Fox News Sunday that, on January 3, 2010, Hume bade a final farewell to his reputation as an objective newsman by suggesting that Tiger Woods should turn to Jesus Christ in order to find true forgiveness and redemption. Hume went on to say that Buddhism just doesn’t cut it in the redemption department the way Christianity does. But let me allow Brit to speak for himself…
Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question…but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal — the extent to which he can recover — seems to me to depend on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist; I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘”Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”
That’s how far Fox News has gone. A former news anchor feels perfectly comfortable as a guest pundit on Fox to dismiss one of the world’s great religions and become cheerleader for another? And given a chance to clarify his anti-Buddhist statements in the wake of the mini-brouhaha that followed, Bishop Hume went on Bill O’Reilly’s show and doubled down on Jesus, with an added touch of faux persecution: “It’s always been a puzzling thing to me. The Bible even speaks of it. You speak the name Jesus Christ — and all hell breaks loose.”
Don’t blame Jesus, Brit. Jesus advised us to “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God’s what is God’s.” He knew when and where to draw the line. Then again, Jesus’ classically liberal point of view never really gets much play on Fox News.
#2 Sarah Palin: Fox’s Newest News Fox.
Fox News has established a tradition of casting hot-looking women as reporters and anchors on their newscasts – even on the local level. Fox News foxes are generally long-legged blondes who dress like they’ve just been to a cocktail party. Now the Fox blondes will have to make room for the Big Brunette. On January 11, 2010, Fox News announced that 2008 GOP Vice Presidential nominee and Alaskan Gubernatorial Quitter, Sarah Palin was joining Fox News as a contributor. Bill O’Reilly, who (allegedly) enjoys chasing gals around the newsroom, hailed the move: “This, of course, is good news for us, as the governor is the most charismatic politician in the country right now, with the possible exception of President Obama…and she’s a legitimate presidential contender in 2012 should she seek the office.”
That Sarah Palin is considered “a legitimate presidential contender” has a lot to do with Fox News pushing that meme. And now, they’re giving her a bully pulpit for self-promotion. And just what is Sarah Palin qualified to comment on? What kind of serious contribution can she make to a news show? In the new book, Game Change, authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin quote McCain Campaign manager Steve Schmidt on the subject of Palin’s depth: “She knew nothing. She had to be taken through World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and Palin was not aware there was a difference between North and South Korea.” Yikes. And this ignoramus could have been one heart attack away from the Presidency? Surely, Palin will say something stupid enough on Fox News to ruin her chances of ever holding high office again.
But why hold out false hope? Glenn Beck has already proven you can never say something stupid enough on Fox News.
#3 Glenn Beck: Dangerous & Tragic Clown
If Glenn Beck hadn’t been born, then Paddy Chayefsky would have had to create him. After all, the only differences between Glenn Beck and Chayefsky’s fictional anchorman-gone-mad, Howard Beale from the film Network, are that Beale was sincere and paid the price for truth-telling with his life. Beck, on the other hand, in an insincere carnival barker who gets paid millions to tell lies. Both Beale and Beck are, however, emotionally damaged, paranoid nutcases who rant and rage night after night, drawing viewers for many of the same reasons an auto accident does.
Beck’s back-story provides clues to what lies behind his rage and paranoia. I won’t go into his childhood family tragedies (you can link to them here), but Beck is, by his own admission, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Of course, having been a heavy drinker and pot smoker doesn’t disqualify him from the role of newsman any more than the fact that he’s been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Nor should his fitness as a newsman be questioned because he dropped out of college after taking one theology class, “Early Christology.” It may raise an eyebrow to learn that Beck was raised in the Catholic Church as a kid and became a Mormon as an adult, but that’s between him and his deity. The whole biographical package, however, does raise questions about his stability. And his schtick on camera indicates that either Beck’s a guy who’s truly teetering on the edge of sanity (as his bio suggests) – or he’s a dangerous demagogue who’s actually crazy like a fox.
Once again, we can look to a great movie, this time Elia Kazan’s 1957 film, A Face in the Crowd, written by Budd Schulberg, for another Beck parallel. This classic film noir follows the rise of a hillbilly huckster named Lonesome Rhodes as he works his opportunistic way up from local radio rabble-rouser to a television cult personality with heavy political clout. In fact, Keith Olbermann frequently refers to Beck as Lonesome Rhodes. But I’m not the only one who sees a far more dangerous and instructive parallel to Beck, not in characters from fiction, but in real world history.
Father Charles Edward Coughlin was a Canadian-born Roman Catholic priest who was one of the first political hacks to use radio to browbeat the ill-informed masses. Back in the 1930’s, Father Coughlin drew up to 40 million listeners for his weekly broadcasts. Though he was an early supporter of Franklin Roosevelt, Coughlin soon became one of the harshest critics of FDR’s New Deal policies. His message also became increasingly anti-Semitic, and he sought to rationalize some of Hitler and Mussolini’s fascist policies in the run-up to WW2 as antidotes to Communism. In time, with America’s entrance into WW2, Father Coughlin’s extreme views and anti-Semitic paranoia lost favor with the public, and he retired to become pastor of his Catholic parish where, one assumes, he preached the Christian gospel of love, tolerance, and peace. I see in Glenn Beck’s weeping, race-baiting and tea-bagging too much of Father Coughlin’s paranoia and embrace of right wing fascism masquerading as faux populism. Sarah Palin is freaky — but Beck is scary.
And now for the comic relief…
#4 Fox & Friends: TV’s Unintentional Morning Zoo
Bozo’s Circus, which featured Bozo the Clown and his wacky friends for over 40 years, is the only TV show in history that starred more clowns than Fox & Friends. Never, I repeat never, fall asleep with your TV tuned to Fox News or you may wake up first thing in the morning to the inane blathering of that trio of know-nothings, Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade.
Steve Doocy has also been the network’s weather forecaster. The dude is a TV weatherman. ‘Nuff said. Gretchen Carlson’s background is a little heavier. She worked at CBS News as a news correspondent and co-anchored the CBS Saturday Early Show, covering breaking real news events like the Columbia space shuttle disaster and the 9-11 attacks. And before her television career, she was the first classical violinist to be crowned Miss America, she graduated with honors from Stanford University, and also studied at Oxford University in England. But all of Carlson’s education, training, and experience is wasted in the lowbrow back and forth on Fox & Friends — though her pageant-winning pulchritude is probably more relevant to her position on the show. As for Brian Kilmeade? He’s a former sports reporter — and not a very bright one. I know Keith Olbermann. Keith Olberman is a friend of mine. You, Brian, are no Keith Olbermann.
And speaking of sports – no serious TV news interviewer lobs a softball question quite like Chris Wallace.
#5 Chris Wallace: Softball Pitcher
Chris Wallace’s dad is the legendary 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace: the guy who made his bones putting hard questions to the biggest of the big boys. Mike went toe to toe with the Ayatollah Khomeini in a 1979 interview in Tehran during the Hostage Crisis. Yet, in Chris Wallace, the apple has fallen many miles from the tree.
Wimpy Chris Wallace routinely invites GOP flacks like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell and others to come on his show and serve up baseless assertions and dubious facts – without any real challenge from Chris: the guy who’s supposed to ask the tough questions. It’s not like Chris doesn’t know how to ask a tough, insightful question. Heck, the guy worked at ABC News for 15 years as a senior correspondent and as a substitute host for Nightline. Surely Ted Koppel taught him something — even if watching his daddy all those years on 60 Minutes didn’t.
That’s not to say Chris Wallace never asks a tough question. If his guest is a Democrat foolish enough to gamble that a Fox News show might actually be fair and balanced for a moment – then Chris is full of facts, figures, and fighting spirit. Suddenly, the softball pitcher is tossing knuckleballs, wicked curves — and the high hard one, up and inside. Obviously, Roger Ailes is behind the plate, calling the signals. GOP at bat? Softball over the plate. Democrat up to bat? Fastball, high and tight.
This past week, as Fox News finally lost all journalistic credibilty – there was one slight ray of hope. The day before it was announced that Sarah Palin was joining Fox News, Matthew Freud, the son-in-law of News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch and a part-owner of the company, denounced Roger Ailes, telling the New York Times he was “ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to”.
It was a moment of institutional sanity drowned out by the mad splash of Fonzie’s water skis flying through the surf and up over that damned shark.
Bazooka Joe, Jay Lynch & Me
It was 20 years ago that I was fortunate enough to cross paths with two pop culture legends.
Here I am, circa about '64. Just the age for Bazooka Joe. In fact, is that an eyepatch strap wrapped around my crewcut head?
I’d actually known one of these legendary figures since I was a boy, riding my bike recklessly down to the corner store for a comic book, pop and some chewing gum. The gum of choice was Bazooka, a sugary square of latent tooth decay, swathed in a waxy wrapper. But I didn’t buy Bazooka for the taste of the gum – just as I didn’t buy baseball cards to get that stale, petrified pink stick that came along with all the photos, stats, and trivia. No, as my teeth worked their way through the first torturous chomps that would eventually soften that small rock-hard mass into something chewable, I was psyched to read the latest about a smart-aleck kid with an eye-patch: Bazooka Joe.
As far as I knew back then, Bazooka Joe And His Gang had always been and always would be. Iconic characters like Joe and Mort weren’t born and could never die. That’s how it is with great folk art. Did Woody Guthrie really write “This Land Is Your Land”, or was it always on the wind, just waiting to be given voice? Was some unknown drummer the first to hit a rim shot after a bad joke – or is that response simply wired into our DNA? Weren’t hamburgers and hot dogs available since the Garden of Eden? For millions of kids like me growing up in the early 1960’s, chewing Bazooka gum while reading Bazooka Joe comics was an essential cultural touchstone — albeit, one that made our jaws sore and our dentists rich.
It was inconceivable to me, as I sat in front of that corner store and chuckled at the antics of Joe and his pals printed on those little colored rectangles of waxed paper, that I would ever have anything to do personally with Bazooka Joe. Then, two decades later, I found myself in the orbit of a second cultural luminary: Jay Lynch.
This is Jay a few years before we met -- so he's not flipping me off.
I met Jay Lynch in the early 1980’s through our mutual friends, Ron and Sydney Crawford. (Someday, I will devote a lot of blog space to the amazing, artistic Crawfords.) At the time Jay was writing a comic strip called Phoebe & the Pigeon People with artist Gary Whitney. (I will soon be writing more about Gary, too.) Of course, like any fan of The Chicago Reader I knew Phoebe & the Pigeon People very well before I ever met Jay and Gary. In person, Jay was a relatively quiet guy. He was quick-witted and fun to be around, but you wouldn’t call him conversational. Jay gave up information about himself with more reluctance than a Gitmo detainee – so how was I to know he was an underground comics legend?
These links will give you a more complete picture of Jay Lynch:
http://www.mindspring.com/~jaylynch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Lynch
Jay is a cultural superstar that has been operating on the minds of American youth (and older folk of youthful spirit) for decades. A contemporary of R. Crumb, Jay contributed to Bijou Funnies, one of the first underground comix, and his characters, Nard n’ Pat are icons in the world of subterranean funnies.
Besides his work with Gary Whitney on the long-running Phoebe & the Pigeon People strip, Jay contributed to Mad Magazine and worked for Topp’s on Bazooka Joe comics. He’s the guy all of us middle-aged kids have to thank for Topp’s “Wacky Packages” in the early 1970’s: those satiric cartoon stickers we stuck all over everything, with titles like “Plastered Peanuts,” “Ultra Blight Toothpaste,” “Messquire Magazine,” and “Mrs. Blubberworth’s Whale Fat Syrup.” And then there’s Jay’s work on classics like Garbage Pail Kids and Meanie Babies. The list goes on…
In the fall of 1989, Victoria and I were planning our wedding for June of the following year, and I already had one foot in Los Angeles, when Jay approached us with an offer I could scarcely believe: would we like to work with him on a new edition of Bazooka Joe comics? I was busy and the holiday season was upon us – but how could we pass up a chance to have our work immortalized on one of those little waxy rectangles? A cosmic opportunity like that must be seized upon with joy and thanksgiving. We told Jay that we’d give it a shot.
According to Jay, Bazooka Joe was in a transitional, post-MTV period. Joe was in need of a makeover. For one thing, the notion of Bazooka Joe and his gang was problematic. The word “gang” no longer called to mind harmless Huntz Hall and The Bowery Boys. Now, courtesy of rap video imagery and real-world drug wars between outlaws like the Crips and Bloods, “gang” had taken on a far more negative connotation. “Bazooka Joe and His Gang” were gone, replaced by Bazooka Joe & Company.
Now, Jay Lynch had dubbed himself Jayzey long before Jay-Z, so he knew that Topps had to embrace the MTV and Hip-Hop culture if it wanted to destroy the teeth of a new generation of kids, so Jay told us they were launching Bazooka Joe Raps. Run DMC meets Bazooka Joe.
Bazooka Joe himself would undergo a bit of a transformation: hipper, more handsome, and more of a jock. Joe’s hair and the bill of his ever-present baseball cap were both longer. And while his eye patch remained, Joe’s good eye was on the future.
Topps was also introducing some new characters. Mort was still there, his nose sticking out of his ultra-long turtleneck, but Bazooka Joe’s new girlfriend was a sexy shopaholic named Zena.
In another nod to advances in youth culture, Metaldude made his debut. A hairy, hard-rocking misfit, Metaldude was designed to appeal to guys who wouldn’t be caught dead hanging with a relatively square guy like Bazooka Joe.
Then, there was Ursula – something totally new for Bazooka Joe: a black woman. And a sexy, confident and athletic black woman at that! Hard-bodied Ursula was drawn in an eye-popping fashion that even a guy with one good eye like Joe would have to appreciate.
From November of ’89 through February ’90, Victoria and I submitted scripts for the various new Bazooka Joe series, including Bazooka Joe Fantasies and Bazooka Joe Mystic Master of Space & Time. As it turned out, we did our best work on Bazooka Joe Raps.
However, my favorite strips are the ones we wrote for Bazooka Joe & Company. I’d always loved those classic three and four panel jokes as a kid – and to get a chance to do it myself was an honor. Victoria, having chewed more than her share of Bazooka Joe as a youth, was also thrilled to be part of a great American cultural institution.
The comics that illustrate this article are ones that we were privileged to add to Bazooka Joe’s jaw-aching legacy. And we’ve got Jay Lynch to thank for allowing us to share a very small part of childhood cultural history.
Wearing Out Adjectives in Praise of Yosemite
For the past three years, our family has spent time during the Christmas holidays in a truly sacred place: Yosemite, the greatest jewel in our treasury of national parks. I can’t imagine that anyone who’s ever visited the Yosemite Valley came away unmoved by its wonders and its power. To see and experience the famous natural landmarks, El Capitan, Half Dome, Bridalveil Falls and Yosemite Falls is to realize that not even Ansel Adams’ incandescent photography can capture the enormity and the splendor of what you’re witnessing.
El Capitan (All photos by my wife, Victoria)
You can take photos, of course – everyone takes photos or draws pictures or paints these majestic scenes – but ultimately the images you take home can never really convey what you saw and felt when you were there. In fact, it’s hard to put it in writing, too. There may be a Native American word that fully describes Yosemite, that synthesizes the natural beauty and divine nature of the place, but you’ll wear out your thesaurus trying to find a completely satisfying adjective in the English tongue.
This past December, we stayed for five days in the tiny town of Wawona, just inside the southern entrance to the park. Long before SUV tires wrapped in snow chains began grinding their way up CA Route 41 and down into the Yosemite Valley, the native Miwok Indians called this spot “Pallachun”, meaning “a good place to stop”. I don’t know why it’s called Wawona today, but it’s still a great place to stop.
A favorite haunt of Yosemite tourists since the mid-1860s, Wawona is primarily known for its namesake hotel, a National Historic Landmark that opened in 1879. The Wawona Hotel is glorious, and we always make it a point to have lunch or dinner there and thaw out in its lovely Victorian lobby – but we’ve never stayed there. Owing to the hotel’s vintage, most rooms don’t have their own bathrooms: not a plus when traveling with children. Or teenage girls, for that matter.
This year, we rented a cabin in Wawona, just a short hike from the hotel, and made day trips to Badger Pass, the Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Falls, the Ahwahnee Hotel (another wonderful man-made landmark), and the Tenaya Lodge (a beautiful and comfortable resort hotel built in recent years in the nearby town of Fish Camp). But our most satisfying experience was our hike to Chilnualna Falls, a lesser-known but wholly adjective-taxing cascade that splashes down a high, rocky 6,200 foot ridge just a few pine-forested, Sequoia-dotted miles northeast of Wawona.
Chilnualna Falls is not only hard to pronounce properly – it, too, is nearly impossible to put into words. “Breathtaking” comes to mind, but it’s overused. And what the kids have done to “awesome” has rendered that marvelous word meaningless.
But where was I? Oh yes, the hike!
Our good friends Amy & Drew (and their dog Lucy) join me on a scenic overlook along the Chilnualna Trail.
The hike to Chilnualna Falls is about a 5-hour round trip, depending upon how often you wind up stopping to gape slack-jawed at the beauty that surrounds you. (And take more inadequate photos, of course.) The trail rises 2,400 feet in elevation through some of the most gorgeous scenery you’ll ever see, and though I dearly wished that we would, we encountered no bears, cougars, or bobcats. (Though they are, I hope, lurking somewhere in all that dense greenery.) As we hiked the not-too-strenuous trail, Chilnualna Falls revealed itself to be not just one big waterfall – but a miles-long series of rocky cataracts, descending over a jumble of huge moss-covered boulders, flowing from its source: a dramatic 240-foot plunge over the cliff and into the gorge below.
Luckily for us, we weren’t swayed by a negative description of the trail that we’d Googled the night before. After our soul-satisfying, heart-lifting hike on the Chilnualna Falls trail, we could only conclude that the entirely misleading listing at Yosemitehikes.com was deviously written by a Wawona local determined to keep the glories of this natural gem a strictly local treasure.
Generations of Yosemite lovers can be grateful that not all of the park’s fans have been so jealous and greedy regarding its many wonders. The 19th Century naturalist, author, preservationist and founder of the Sierra Club, John Muir, perhaps Yosemite’s greatest (and most protective) fan was also the park’s foremost promoter. Over the course of his many years living and working in the Valley, Muir did his best to put Yosemite into words.
In his 1912 book, The Yosemite, he came pretty damn close.
“The Bridal Veil and Vernal Falls are famous for their rainbows…amid the spray and foam and fine-ground mist ever rising from the various falls and cataracts there is an affluence and variety of iris bows scarcely known to visitors who stay only a day or two. Both day and night, winter and summer, this divine light may be seen wherever water is falling dancing, singing; telling the heart peace of Nature amid the wildest displays of her power.”
That’s pretty evocative stuff — but Muir is almost obsessed with these rainbows.
“Lunar rainbows, or spray bows also abound in the glorious affluence of dashing, rejoicing, hurrahing, enthusiastic spring floods, their colors as distinct as those of the sun and regularly and obviously banded, thou less vivid. Fine specimens may be found any night at the foot of the Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing gloriously mid the gloomy shadows and thundering waters, whenever there is plenty of moonlight and spray.”
Despite my wife’s constant vigilance (and she was nearly as obsessed as Muir), we never saw a satisfactory example of Muir’s lunar rainbows on our recent trip – but I did manage to capture an image of these spectral shafts of light on our hike along the Chilnualna Falls trail. (See photo at left. Did I mention my wife took all the other photos in this post?)
Now, back to John Muir on Yosemite Falls…
“Though the dark gorge hall of these rejoicing waters is never flushed by the purple light of morning or evening, it is warmed and cheered by the white light of noonday, which, falling into so much foam and spray of varying degrees of fineness, makes marvelous displays of rainbow colors…even at the bottom, in the boiling clouds of spray, there is no confusion, while the rainbow light makes all divine, adding glorious beauty and peace to glorious power.”
To that, I can add no more. After all is written and said, you just have to experience the beauty, peace and power of Yosemite for yourself. Do it soon. Check out Chilnualna Falls — and keep an eye out for those lunar rainbows.
Our entire Yosemite exploration party pose on the southern fork of the Merced River in Wawona. (Front row: Emilia, Victoria and Eva. Back row: Drew, me, Amy and Lucy)
The Blog Begins…
With this blog, I am taking my first personal step into the wild and fearsome tubes of the internets. So far, I have managed to get my picture on the header and write and illustrate a few hopefully somewhat entertaining and occasionally enlightening pages devoted to “Adventure”, “Politics”, “Rock & Roll” (including a short origin of the Rockme Foundation: a legendary tale told from my POV), and “History” (which, at this point, covers Part One of the story of The Practical Theatre Co. and a brief historical note on The Sturdy Beggars).
If I continue to make progress at this rate, I should have this site truly up and humming by the summer of 2012.
Since Facebook freaks me out, my goal is that this blog will, over time, become a place where friends and other curious folk will be able to keep up with my latest news, projects, photos, thoughts, opinions, and adventures. It will also be a place to connect with a bit of shared history. After all, where else will you find a grainy black and white photo of yours truly, Brad Hall and Robert Ghandi Mendel walking through the south sorority quad on the Northwestern University campus, circa 1977? (I believe these photos were taken by our good buddy and classmate, Jim McCutchen, who is now one of those infamous Philadelphia lawyers).
Each week, I will post a new article to this blog. That’s the plan at least. (Over the course of the coming year, for instance, I hope to finish my brief history of The Practical Theatre.) I hope you’ll peruse the site now and then and let me know what you think. Happy New Year, everybody!
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Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 