wedge blog

                                     THE TWO ANDYS

After watching Andy Rooney fumble through a two minute coda tonight on 60 Minutes, I couldn’t resist re-posting this suggestion to CBS News:

 
That ticking black stopwatch is more significant for Bill Geist and Nancy Giles, two commentators often seen on CBS Sunday Morning. They are probably backstage tapping their fingers, biding their time to become the heir apparent for Andy Rooney.  I wouldn’t put it beyond them to send Rooney thoughtful gift baskets with fat-laden treats and cigars.

I hope they are disappointed: Andy Rooney’s successor might not be waiting in a CBS studio. He might be in the bathroom mirror in Pittsburgh or yelling at the kids in Spokane.

CBS has tried citizen commentators before. It’s time to give the last few of those 60 Minutes to the senior citizens who bookend their Sundays with Charles Osgood and Mr. Rooney.

Wedged between short segments in war and politics, for a couple of years The CBS Evening News  Free Speech Segment attempted to become the venue for ordinary Americans to speak out. The concept was abandoned without fanfare in 2006.

Free Speech wasn’t a bad idea: it was just the wrong venue.With overwhelming hard news, the twenty-odd minute Nightly News is not the forum for cogent feedback.

Free Speech deserves a new life, a transplant where it’s more likely to thrive. Tick, tick, tick.

Did you hear Andy Rooney complain this evening (4/25/10) about the lack of primary care physicians?  Hardly a news flash. It brought back sad memories of Harry Caray during his last drooling seasons with the Cubs. The producers probably have more respect for Rooney’s body of work than for  his recent commentaries. Rooney might be a great guy, but he has the stage presence of a not-so-delightful cross between A.A. Milne’s “Eeyore” and a weary Studs Terkel.

Go ahead and retire with dignity, Mr. Rooney. Get a winch for that desk and update your memoirs from a posh perch on the Upper East Side.

Once the office is cleaned out, let’s replace Andy Rooney with Andy Warhol. This is the digital age: condense Warhol’s ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ down to three or four. Open up You Tube, hire a new producer, go through submissions. Pick one to air, and maybe four “runners-up” to link to CBS News’ website.

Reviving Free Speech within the context of television’s premier newsmagazine accomplishes many goals:

*It gives viewers a level playing field to have a say in a respected venue.

*It may broaden the base—is Uncle Charley from Butte, Montana finally going to get the chance to tell off the Feds? The segment will widen viewership for web and broadcast. The demographic right now is fairly easy to deduce, given the geriatric content of advertising placement and all those white heads in the studio.

*It would saves money. Talent is everywhere. Post basic requirements and links on the CBS News website, where hits and submissions are bound to explode.

*It offers commentators more freedom than the old 90-second Free Speech segment, and gives a voice to stories that are best told in  ‘first person’.

Of course, I volunteer to be your first citizen commentator.

It may be hard to be as much at ease as Andy is behind his famous burlwood desk, but even Andy might admit it’s not hard to be better looking.

What law of physics explains the motion of the adjacent subway car always appears more jarring than the car I am on? Please respond with non-copyright mathematical formula.

v

“Blowtorch and a putty knife,” answered the doorman on the tony Upper East Side, when I politely asked why there are no gum spots stuck to his sidewalk.

v

Manhattan mannhole Covers:

CON ED: Consolidated Edison.

NYWS: New York Water & Sewer.

DWS: Da Wada an’ Sewa?

DPW: Da Pow-wa an’ Wada, what else???

v

Small plaque @ 3rd Street Station NYC:”Hospital for Joint Disorders”. Ideal patient: mobility-impaired conjoined twin with a weed problem.

v

Overheard at CLAY gym on 14^th Street:

Trainer: What kind of exercise are you doing now?

New Member: I used to have sex with my girlfriend before we broke up. What exercise is most like sex?

Trainer: That depends. Why did your girlfriend break up with you?’

v

Ratio of cows to people in Montana? 2:1

Ratio of rats to people in Manhattan?

A matter of controversy, ranging from 6:1 to 10:1+. In Montana, our herds of animals are an industry. New Yorkers poison theirs. Maybe they ought to start wranglin’ rats in the Subway stations. I want to see someone dressed like Roy Rogers down there, straddlin’ the tracks, crackin’ the lasso to the strains of “Get Along Little Ratty.”

v

There is no such thing as a good looking men’s dress shoe.  Leather submarines, small European watercraft, shoes with very shiny pointed toes (don’t ask what they use for polish).

v

The curious substitution of the word for a wooden-handled sharp instrument used to fell trees  with a three letter word meaning

 “to inquire”. 

v

  Keep looking for Lex Luthor’s lair. If anyone sees Ned Beatty, please trail him and call my cell. 

                                                          v

The rule of inverse proportions: footwear vs. diamonds. The smaller the shoe, the more adorable; the bigger the rock, the more desirable. A size ten loafer and a half carat ain’t gonna cut it in Manhattan.

v

The platform on the 1 Train has been under construction at 59^th Street for at least three years. I am tempted, when seeing the dilapidated state of the project after my trip to the opera, to alter the sign: “Platform Under DEstruction”

v

What’s with these Jewish guys who look vaguely Hasidic? Instead of looking like extras from Fiddler, these zaftig guys look like they’re partners in a plus-size zoot suit factory. And unlike The Chosen, who avert their black-rimmed spectacles, so many of these fellows are overtly horny (and slightly desperate to be looking at me). Who are they? The Second Choice?

v

Been to Mumbai in the monsoon? Been in a NYC subway station after a rainstorm? Mumbai gutter, just outside the Oberoi is the outdoor version of the 23^rd Street Station. No shit. I mean, shit.

v

I understand that humans are social creatures, but anything that causes our species to swarm aimlessly devalues humanity (Times Square).  Like mayonnaise, humans may be appealing when spread thinly, but we are unappetizing in large globs.

                                                     v

A woman dropped her purse on the subway tracks and made the mistake of attempting to retrieve it. When passers-by yelled at her to lay flat in the Mumbai sewage (see above note) she decided to squeeze into the 1 ½” space between the subway and the platform.  An eyewitness said when the first car hit her, it sounded like a popping paper bag.

After that incident I tried to find a seat in the middle of the train.              

                                            v

Human brains are like Silly Putty. When our minds are pulled in many directions, we lack depth. We sag. It’s easy to see thtrough us. When we lump ourselves into little balls, it’s easy to roll around in a self-absorbed stupor, gathering the hairy lint of relationships or creative pursuits.

The finest minds, when flattened, imprint and integrate. Silly Putty on newsprint, roll up and roll on. The tragic ones get dropped, slide down the sewer, and sometimes, when the gasses are just right, they explode.