2010 Emmy Awards: What do Americans Find Funny?

Starting back in 1949, the budding television enterprise began to acknowledge "best" products on it's fledgling airwaves. In 1952, these awards formed their first genre based categories: Comedy, Drama, and Variety. Lead Actors and Actresses where also awarded prizes (although the first lead awards in comedy were given in 1951).

So what did we find leading the way of funny shows beginning in 1952? Here's the roster.
1952 ~ The Red Skelton Show (1)
1953 ~ I Love Lucy (1)
1954 ~ I Love Lucy (2)
1955 ~ Make Room For Daddy (1)
1956 ~ The Phil Silvers Show (1)
1957 ~ The Phil Silvers Show (2)
1958 ~ The Phil Silvers Show (3)
1959 ~ The Jack Benny Show (1)
1960 ~ Art Carney Special (1)
1961 ~ The Jack Benny Show (2)
1962 ~ The Bob Newhart Show (1)
1963 ~ The Dick Van Dyke Show (1)
1964 ~ The Dick Van Dyke Show (2)
1965 ~ The Dick Van Dyke Show (3)
1966 ~ The Dick Van Dyke Show (4)
1967 ~ The Monkeys (1)
1968 ~ Get Smart (1)
1969 ~ Get Smart (2)
1970 ~ My World And Welcome To It (1)
1971 ~ All In The Family (1)
1972 ~ All In The Family (2)
1973 ~ All In The Family (3)
1974 ~ M*A*S*H (1)
1975 ~ The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1)
1976 ~ The Mary Tyler Moore Show (2)
1977 ~ The Mary Tyler Moore Show (3)
1978 ~ All In The Family (4)
1979 ~ Taxi (1)
1980 ~ Taxi (2)
1981 ~ Taxi (3)
1982 ~ Barney Miller (1)
1983 ~ Cheers (1)
1984 ~ Cheers (2)
1985 ~ The Cosby Show (1)
1986 ~ The Golden Girls (1)
1987 ~ The Golden Girls (2)
1988 ~ The Wonder Years (1)
1989 ~ Cheers (3)
1990 ~ Murphy Brown (1)
1991 ~ Cheers (4)
1992 ~ Murphy Brown (2)
1993 ~ Seinfeld (1)
1994 ~ Frasier (1)
1995 ~ Frasier (2)
1996 ~ Frasier (3)
1997 ~ Frasier (4)
1998 ~ Frasier (5)
1999 ~ Ally McBeal (1)
2000 ~ Will & Grace (1)
2001 ~ Sex In The City (1)
2002 ~ Friends (1)
2003 ~ Everybody Love Raymond (1)
2004 ~ Arrested Development (1)
2005 ~ Everybody Loves Raymond (2)
2006 ~ The Office (1)
2007 ~ 30 Rock (1)
2008 ~ 30 Rock (2)
2009 ~ 30 Rock (3)
2010 ~ Modern Family

World Peas

Get it? A world made up of peas, to illustrate World Peas which is a knock off of the phrase World Peace. See. What will they think of next!? I mean the kids, right? They are so dog gone clever....

Thursday Sermon

"The scribes and pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, and making her stand forward they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now Moses has commanded us in the Law to stone such creatures; but what do you say?" ~ The Gospel according to St. John, Chapter 8: verses 3-5

So begins one of the most familiar stories in the New Testament. And we know exactly what Jesus thinks, "Let the innocent among you, through the first stone at her." Now it should be said that Biblical scholars recognize that the portion of the Gospel of St. John that encompasses the first 11 verses of chapter 8 are an addition to the original text from an unknown source and post-date the majority of the rest of gospel by a significant number of years. In other words, the story is like a post-a-note on the original manuscript. And how depressing is that? One of the greatest stories in all of the Gospels came from some else and was added later.

And yet how deliciously ironic! A sort of, "let whatever story that demonstrates the heart of Christ more redact out these 11 verses first!" eh?

There is no clearer illustration of the essential prominence of humility in Christ's teaching; a refutation of all of the judgmental things that one finds in the Old Testament and the Letters of Saul of Tarsus in the New Testament. After all, who get's the last word in all of this? Moses? Paul? or Jesus?

To this allow me the audacity to place same-sex marriage. Show me the evidence that demonstrates that opposite sex weddings are without their difficulties? So how is it that anyone can uphold such a flawed and challenging concept as marriage as being uniquely suited to only one type of pairing? It would seem to me that every union that attempts to achieve stability and bliss in this way ought to cause every other union of similar confession and intent to rejoice.

Art I'm Seeing #53: The Murals of Philadelphia

National Public Radio (NPR) had a wonderful story on the wall murals of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There are cities to go to to visit their museums, Philadelphia is a sort of museum writ large all unto itself. Even a casual visit and you'll see them from the expressways if all you're doing to passing through. But really don't. Pull off and explore, you won't be disappointed.





I don't know how many their actually are, but I would guess 500 to 1,000. Every city in America should be so adorned.

2010 Midterms: FL-Senate

Marco Rubio is a politician that I do not like.

Simple Sunday Dinner

Open faced English muffins with a side of sauteed spinach.

Take a multi-grain Thomas' English muffin and add in this order, honey mustard, avocado slices, prosciutto, grated sharp cheddar cheese. Place in toaster oven (or conventional oven set to 450˚) for approximately 3 minutes to melt the toast and toast the prosciutto. You can nix the prosciutto for a vegan option, but if you do I recommend adding freshly ground black pepper on the avocado before the cheese.

The spinach is just baby spinach in a bag washed and tossed into a skillet with hot olive oil, chopped garlic, and kosher salt. Let the water that is on the leaves when you washed the spinach enter the skillet, too. Not extra water, just the water on the leaves even if they're dripping when you transfer them. Toss all of it in the skillet and then once mixed, cover and simmer for 4 to 5 minutes. After 2 minutes flop the cooked spinach on the bottom over with the leaves still on the top. Remove from the heat and squeeze the juice of a fresh lemon over the whole. Serve immediately. i.e. don't leave it in the skillet to cook longer, you don't want to eat mush.

Be Still My Sacred Heart

Finally! A Sacred Heart of Jesus that even I can believe in! Nicked from Jesus Silverlake's FB page, a real faith giver!

Today's Sermon #33

ballet dancer Li Cunxin in 1986 when he was dancing with the Houston Ballet

That gorgeous kite
rising
from the beggar's shack.

~ Kobayashi Issa 1763-1827

The Planet IS Melting

The questions are: 1) What are we gonna do about it? AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, 2) What can we do about it?


The bottom picture shows the difference in the glacier on the northern edge of Greenland. It shows how on August 10th, satellite images discovered this now free floating berg of ice with a surface area of 271 sq. Kilometers. It's about 250 miles long and 120 mile wide. 250 miles is approximately the distance between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Chances of this floating island ever reaching open sea is very slim...which is to say that it will need to become very slim before it will leave it's present fjord enclosure.

With all of this melting, when will the oceans actually start to rise?

The Wall Of Stuff

Introducing Charlie, a gosh darn cute ginger boy. And who hasn't had to move a wall? Enjoy!

What I'm Watching #248

"Mr. Right" is a lovely ensemble flick from Britain. It's the story of a cadre of friends, mostly gay, and their season of living queerly. There's bitchy and there's tender, there's lies, and there's grace, and there's no resolution, just stuff on stuff. It's really like life, except you'll like the hearts of the characters presented here even if you disagree with their actions or choices. Nice film.

What's Wrong....

with this picture? Where to begin.....

This is the home of my neighbors. We live in Takoma Park, Maryland. Takoma Park is both an azalea city, and a tree city. We love trees, we love azaleas. We just love!

So back to the photograph that I snapped this afternoon. The home belongs to my neighbors. It's a crime scene. The victim is the power...Monsieur Electricity ~ he's dead. And why? This is the question any good detective asks, non?

Let us begin with the witness interview. I was watching the closing segments of a Law & Order episode on TNT network on my HDTV when suddenly an explosion reverberated though my home and everything went dark and silent. The power, it was dead. I know this, because it has been killed three times in the past month, but before it was assassinated in the midst of power storms. This day, it was simple snuffed out without any apparent cause. Ergo, I began my investigation.

I instinctively drove to the bottom of the hill in my neighborhood, because I have long eyed with suspicion exhibit A. The ancient tree that has grown over my neighbor's home. It is a veritable Sword of Damocles without all of the mythological meaning the metaphor implies. It's just one hulking tree waiting to vivisect one humble home!

All of this pretense aside, here's where things get really ugly. The rain apparently loosened the soil just enough to cause tree "A" to sag into tree "B" just enough to snap one of it's boughs "C", which crossed the live wires and initiated the transformer box explosion and power outage in the neighborhood. Can you say warning shot? Clearly tree "A" only has more havoc in it's future.

So I asked the owner of the house about this. Apparently all of their concern about the tree has fallen upon the deaf ears of the Takoma Park arborist. An paid employee with the only and last word upon the fate of trees in Takoma Park.

The home owners have only recently been given (after multiple attempts) the right to have the dangerous tree removed, but because it is a living tree, they must also pay my town a fee of $1,500 in addition to the cost of removal. Now, I have to ask you to LOOK AT THE PHOTO AGAIN! This tree's topple could easily cost the homeowners' $100,000.00 to repair, not to mention the injury and/or death to anyone inside the structure when the tree finally gives way.

Further, there is the neighborhood to consider. At least one inhabitant of this neighborhood is elderly and in failing health. Should this tree give way to gravity and crash into this house taking with it all of the power lines around it, who is responsible for the domino effect that could likely lead to his death in a time of prolonged exposure to heat or cold? And what of the fact that the homeowners, in spite of their own desire to have it removed where blocked first by Herr Arborist and, finally by a ridiculous and unreasonable fine placed upon then by a city that values the life of one mis-shapen and ill-placed tree over the welfare of its citizens?

Let's hope it never comes to this.

UPDATE: The Tree is Gone!

I sent an email about the situation to my city council member, Fred, and he visited the home, got a waiver on the tax, and helped the home owner find a company to remove the tree. I learned later that the home owner also called Fred for assistance. From crisis to solution: 36 hours. Sometimes government works. Who knew?

i love mountains, too!

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Ecco Homo Ursa Major

Freedom Of Speech Is Rightfully Blind!

Sorry for the crudeness...but I just love the chuztpa of this "little brother". Free speech can be a bitch...and a blessing!--A cuter, funnier, 165 lb slightly nervous, yet radical little sweet blessing!

What I'm Listening to #92

The Script is a fairly inde- pendent British band in the finest boychick tradition. I bought this CD for the song The Man Who Can't Be Moved and then discovered that Breakeven was also on it. I hear good stuff all the time, but don't pay too much attention to it all. It's silly, I know.

And If You See Kay I thought was Brittany Spears' clever little anti-social jingle, but here it is on this CD, too....go figure. Hard to keep a good aural gag down.

A Few Of My Favorite Words....

I found this amazing ariel view of Ashtabula, Ohio on Wikipedia and it sent me into a reflection of words and phrases that I love!

Ashtabula
Au jour d'hui
Bujumbura,
Burundi
Colonoscopy
Cacophony
Cicada
Desireé
Devereau
Destiny
Errata
Flotilla
Flotsam
Gorilla
Haberdashery
Hullabaloo
Hatchery
Igloo
Jackal
Juxtaposition
Kaleidoscope
Kilgali
Lavender
Locution
Microscope
Mon Dieu
Nirvana
Obrigado
Opulent
Putrescence
Prevalence
Quintessential
Queer
Ramadan
Register
Stifle
Sous Chef
Trifle
Trumpet
Unicorn
Umbrage
Vivisect
Varicose Vein
Walrus
Winter
Wane
Xenophobe
Yacht
Zachary
and Zane

Art I'm Seeing #52

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has just opened an exhibition of the paintings of iconic American illustrator/painter Norman Rockwell from the collections of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, two American icons in their own right. Included are many familiar paintings by the somewhat reclusive New Englander. Cartainly this image titled The Connoisseur from 1962,
or this one from 1941 titled The Flirts. But that's the thing about Rockwell you get the feeling that you've seen any and everything that he's ever painted!

As a child in the 60's and 70's I lived in a world for more attuned to the message of The Connoisseur than that of The Flirts. The world was leaving Rockwell's innocence and charm and grappling with paradigms of honesty and rapid social change; a social order that was learning how to let go of nostalgia in favor of an unknown and radically more egalitarian future. A world that made about as much sense to the establishment as the abstract painting in the first image.

As I look at these painting now, through the shattered window pane of history, I am; however, far less critical. There was a time when I rejected Rockwell as quaint and out of touch. Now I see just how in touch he actually was. There lies within his paintings, at least some of them, an absurdity. What starts out as a joke, ends up as a pathetic and embarrassing, or in the case of The Jury, (a scene in a jury room where eleven chain smoking, bedraggled men beseech the lone hold out, an Audrey Hepburn look-a-like who sits calmly with her arms folded across her chest at the end of the table) amazed that a world run by men ever existed or managed to survive.

And the times, he loves to define the power and masculinity of men with cigars! I can't imagine how people survived the stench! Even poor Gary Cooper in this 1930 painting called Gary Cooper As The Texan.

Remember, I mentioned that whenever I see a Norman Rockwell painting, I feel like I've seen it before? That isn't always true, and this last image was quite an interesting example. Especially, since Rockwell traded on the truth of his fantasies (Santa Claus not-with-standing.)

So Mermaid from 1955 was a delightful discovery.

It's a wonderful little show. Enter from the west side of the atrium, it's there through the first of the new year.

Sunday Funny #28

My World, My Way

Designer Allen Solly's latest campaign. Very clever, great images....





....And a great website, too!