Rocci Fisch

October 8, 2010

"ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE"

…That's what I thought of when reading/hearing about last weekend's One Nation Working Together rally that took place on the Mall in the nation's capital. I couldn't get the 1978 Funkadelic anthem declaring the power of funk out of my mind all week.
…“One nation under a groove, gettin' down just for the funk of it. One nation and we're on the move, nothing can stop us now…”
…MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz of The Ed Show opened up the rally and said the gathering was "about getting the power to the people." That reminded me of The Chi-Lites singing (For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People (1971, Brunswick Records)
…Rev. Al Sharpton yelled to the crowd: "We gotta get ready for that midterm exam," referring to the midterm elections coming up in November that the Democrats are somewhat worried about, what with the groundswell of the Tea Party and some of its victories in recent state primaries.
…That Al's got a way with words.
…Reports say the crowd was in the tens of thousands. That's what they said about Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally last month. They don't do official crowd counts anymore. The National Park Service was told to get out of that business years ago. Counting numbers got political. At least the politicians claimed it did when it didn't serve their own self-interests.
…It's ridiculous. I want an official, unbiased count when big stuff like this happens. Can't we lay our weapons down and not let politics come between us as humans? Ha Ha Ha.
That newspaper ad for Ben Affleck's The Town movie with nuns in horror-faced masks toting guns with a Brinks-type truck behind them really throws me off. In a black and white ad it's hard to make out what's in the shot; all I see is Halloween nuns or something.
…Why are nuns doing this? Is the film religious or Freddy Kruegar-ish?
…No, it's about bank heists in Boston. They should've blown up a big picture of Affleck in character for the movie poster to convey the film better, if you ask me.
…Affleck must've really worked out to get in the shape he's in in the movie. He's got six- and maybe eight-pack abs working. They show that in the flick.
…He needs a hit movie. He's got to keep up with Matt Damon. They started out together and Damon's had much more movie success than Ben.
…Except I could've done without his South African accent that he took on in that movie Invictus with Morgan Freeman, in which he played the captain of a rugby team.
How much longer do we have to suffer through those BP ads about how much they're concerned about the gulf oil spill? If I see Iris Cross of BP Community Outreach – yeah, that's believable - with the locals one more time down there I think I'll…
"I'm gonna be here 'til we make this right," she says. That's the tag line. BP's gonna make it right. Don't we all feel secure about that promise.
Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is how having to share her abode with a new arrival, that of a young kitty who doesn't have a name yet but who likes to explore around the house and has sharp claws. Lee Lee is doing a lot of barking and the cat is doing a lot of dodging at the moment. More in this space as the transition eases up.
JUST ASKING. Did Rahm Emanuel's somewhat tearful farewell to President Obama and the White House staff get to you? Did you think he had a tender bone in his body? He got choked up when he started talking about his family as immigrants coming to this country.
…I didn't know he had it in him.
JUST WONDERING. If something happens to Michael Douglas (he's got throat cancer) what will NBC do on the Nightly News? He's the announcer for the show.
…And that hair of his - in his Wall Street movie and in real life … Is that for real? Is it all his? Isn't it a bit 70's-ish?
…Maybe so, but it still looks good.
Michaele Salahi's (White House party crasher) red and gold sari dress she wore that night was auctioned off for $7,000, sold to salon owner James Packard-Gomez, who claims the Salahis never paid his bill for their wedding years earlier. (They owe everybody.)
…Seven thousand dollars!!! I saw something that looked just like that in the window of a rundown Georgetown shop that sold for 75 bucks, for crissakes. And that was too much.
…It's paper thin. Somebody got ripped off.
Nancy Grace gets all wrapped up in those crime cases she talks about with experts on her HLN cable show. She's not afraid to state her opinion and call a spade a spade. The other night she got so mad she said, "I could just chew a nail in half," on the show she did about a woman who faked terminal cancer to get a free wedding.
…I like that kind of talk.
When it was announced that Oprah Winfrey would be one of the five chosen winners of this year's Kennedy Center Honors (the others are Paul McCartney, Merle Haggard, Bill T. Jones and Jerry Herman) TBD, the newly renamed local TV channel (formerly Newschannel 8) in the Washington, D.C. market "covered the story" by showing just a picture of Winfrey and none of the other honorees. And many other stations/networks have done this too.
…Couldn't they have gotten pix/video of the others to make it all equal? Is that so hard to do?
…Many think Winfrey shouldn't even be in among the group. They're all performers. She's a talk show host.
…So is Oprah Winfrey upstaging the whole awards. It's pretty obvious.
…Talk show hosts can be/do anything their little hearts desire.
…How unfortunate.
NOTICED. Andy Griffith, 84, in those Medicare TV ads for Obama's health-care plan , has aged a bit since his Mayberry days. He tells seniors that "good things are coming" under the health-care overhaul and plucks the strings of a guitar nearby when he's finished.
…It's good to see and hear Sheriff Taylor again (not dressed in character) but his speech seems very labored, a bit slow and it's a little hard to take, unfortunately.
FOR THE RECORD. MSNBC, on Friday, Sept. 9, misspelled Snooki, star of MTV's Jersey Shore. They put an "e" on the end of it ("Snookie") Criminal.
Many think Michael Bolton - THE Michael Bolton - was judged unfairly (a 3 out of 10) by Dancing With the Stars' Bruno Tonioli, who said that his dancing to Hound Dog was the "worst jive [he'd seen] in 11 seasons" [of the show]. (Bolton started the routine on all fours in a doghouse with a bone in his mouth.)
…Tonioli also said, "You should have taken your bone and gone back to the doghouse. You did it very, very, very badly."
…Them's fighting words. Bolton's asking for an apology.
Cirque du Soleil's new show is about insects and is called Ovulation … er, I mean Ovo. Why always the odd names for the shows? Why not just name it Buggies or something? I don't get it.
…Too highfalutin.
HE LEFT HER FOR THAT? Jesse James left Sandra Bullock for Kat Von D, that LA Ink cable TV star who's painted with tattoos head to foot? How long will that last?
…What will she look like when she reaches 50, 60? Will better technology be available by then to remove the indelible ink so she can spend her senior years not looking like a shriveled up, drug-crazed hippie?
PHIL SPECTOR MUST BE HAPPY IN HIS JAIL CELL. The record producer/songwriter's To Know Him Is to Love Him (originally a #1 pop hit for The Teddy Bears in 1958) is now being used as background music by Humana health insurance in a TV ad.
…This time around, though, it's sung as "To Know You Is to Love You," to personalize it.
…It's done by a young guy who does a modern-day, friendly-sounding version of it to go along with video of little kids saying how much they love their grandmas and grandpas and all that family stuff that touches seniors.
…Spector's currently serving 19 years in prison for the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003. So he's making royalty money off it.
…Wonder if he hides it under his "pillow" in his jail cubicle?
…How wise a move is this on behalf of Humana health? Wait till people hear about the Phil Spector connection.
COMING UP. A remake of the 1978 film, I Spit on Your Grave (great title, huh?), a rape revenge movie coming out Oct. 8 A woman from the city rents an isolated cabin in the woods to write her latest novel. A group of local lowlifes rape and abuse her and she gets back at them one-by-one.
…God knows how much violence will be in this one.
…UH … God Only Knows - The Beach Boys, on Capitol Records, 1966, off their Pet Sounds album.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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